I had never made a proper swarm before. Ironic, considering my current state. I suppose one could consider the bunch of bees that crowded Yelah’s group could be considered a swarm, but not like this. So when Belial and Belphegora’s respective groups banded together to head for Yiwi’s city center, I couldn’t help but get a little excited. Yes, only a little. The same couldn’t be said for a certain monarch.
“Hell yeah! Onwards, my children! Fly as one, swarm and overwhelm the enemy!”
Queen was getting way into the whole thing. I was excited too, but the shock of the Rotor’s fall was still dampening my thoughts. Forget the damage caused by people’s Abilities, this was going to be a nightmare to clean up.
Now, what exactly was my little swarm going to do? They were doing the bare minimum to hide their true size as they flew over the rooftops, but if they were heading for the city center, then hiding was pretty pointless. At the very least, the Rotor’s shaft could marginally hide them from the Fighters, but if they directly confronted the enemy, well.
No hiding there.
In general, I was letting my Valkybees come up with the specifics of their attack. They probably knew more about that than me, at least to some degree. As for more general goals, I suppose putting an end to the city center battle would be best. Like I had theorized, it still seemed likely that the enemy would surrender if they lost this battle.
Well, looking at the city through my three proper scouts, nobody really seemed to have much will to continue fighting.
Speaking of my scouts, Ben had once again switched places, this time with Bennet. To distract him - not a difficult task at all - I ordered Ben to seek out Jill Yemonto and keep an eye on her. She was too important of a player to lose like I had, and I didn’t know if Benita or Bennet were up to the task without ultimately being put in danger. At least Ben could be super far away and look at her.
And before I even knew it, Ben found her. I couldn’t help being surprised by how quickly he had done it, considering I expected her to still be scheming somewhere or something. But no, she was actually sprinting towards the city center, nearly leaving her entourage of Yemonto Co. mercenaries in the dust. Seeing her being so direct, even if it was freaky to watch an old lady sprinting like a pro athlete, made me sigh in relief. At the same time, it made me nervous for my swarm.
I kept my attention trained on Yiwi as I looked at Beatrice hovering beside me, lost in thought. When the Rotor fell, I decided that I would eventually have to go to Yiwi, providing we won. She wasn’t happy about it, to say the least. I convinced her, but with the provision that I could only leave once Yiwi was squarely under our control, something I was hoping to happen before the day even ended.
That’s right, enough grandstanding. The swarm was my gambit. Before the sun set over the city, I wanted to collect the complete surrender of the enemy. To do that, I knew my swarm would have to either kill or incapacitate the entire enemy army, at least enough for their leaders to back down. Of course, there was another option. Kinda. A certain Lord, who I was sure was soon to be in our grasp, might be enough to stop most of the fighting.
I watched as my swarm approached the massive cloud of smoke and dust that was the city center. The swarm was strong, but would they be able to defeat an entire army of mercenaries? Maybe, maybe not. Could they defeat a few particular enemies who would probably never back down, and were a driving force for the entire opposition of my goals?
Heck yeah.
__________
He could see them.
Despite the fact that their swarm was still some ways away from the humans’ new folly, Belial could easily see the faces of his three - rather, four - targets clearly. He was still developing his [Piercing Gaze of the Insect], but with continued inspiration from his elder brother, he was making wonderful progress.
Belial wasn’t sure how to think of the humans who had betrayed their hive. Of course, he hated them. Hated the grief and stress they put on his dear Mother and hated how they interfered with her glorious plans. However, he and his fellow Valkybees saw the humans in a peculiar way.
Callous may be a good descriptor.
To the Valkybees, the humans were weak trash, weak as individuals and weak as a group. Part of it came from the fact that the four warrior elites were, as implied, elite individuals. Individuals who often did not work well with others, considering their bizarre and untamed power. Sir Bedivere was the only one Belial thought even stood a chance at standing at their side. Even his dear sister Beryl did not have their natural capabilities. And yet even these exceptional four obtained power from the hive.
And yet, this was exactly why Belial and his three sisters felt such strange callousness towards the humans. Observing them for this past week or so had shown Belial that humans were… odd. Were they strong? Weak? He wasn’t sure anymore.
He gently shifted the three weapons he held. He had never returned the guns to the humans and had kept them for himself, practicing with them. He did this despite the reactions of his siblings. He knew dear sister Beryl viewed his fascination with contempt, and felt the subtle disapproval of his master during training. The most obvious reaction came, of course, from Beelzebub, who mocked him to his face.
And despite all that, he held onto the three items. Practiced hefting and shooting them until he ran out of ammo. And then he managed to make more ammo with the help of little Beau to continue practicing.
He wanted to use them, even if they felt inadequate. Whenever he tried stinger fencing like his master, he felt wrong. Whenever he challenged Belphegora to a battle of the Minds, it didn’t feel quite right either. The only times he felt comfortable was when elder brother gave him inspiration for his sight, or ‘Looking’ as he described it, and when he was shooting the guns.
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Belial looking longingly down at the street where even more guns lay. Three just wasn’t enough. It felt horribly unbalanced, especially with how one was a rifle of significantly larger size and weight compared to the two much smaller pistols. How many would Belial need before he was satisfied? Well, he was content to wait before answering that question. His current limited practice was with three, and there was no time to waste before confronting the humans.
Humans which were less than a couple hundred meters away by now.
“Are you going to shoot them now, Belial?” Belphegora said. She and him were the crux of this minor military force the bees were employing, so their opening move had been debated. Belphegora wanted Belial to begin shooting the humans from a distance as they closed in, surprising them, while Belial wanted them to get as close as possible by using Belphegora’s illusions.
The two perhaps had their desires a bit backwards.
“I believe that ultimately, a mixture of both our talents will be the best course of action, lady Belphegora. Remember our primary objective.”
“Right. Link the most important enemies, don’t hesitate to kill the rest. Should be easy with all the Linkers you brought. But the emotions I’m feeling imply that their Minds are working to help them recover already, so we need to be swift. By the time we attack, they’ll probably already be alert,” she responded, turning to glare at him. “And don’t call me lady.”
“As you wish, lady,” Belial said with a magnificent bow.
“Momdammit…” Belphegora cursed under her breath. Yet another example of the influence humans had already impressed upon the hive. Belial was sharp enough to see that the malleable young bees had been affected by the humans in various ways, such as Belphegora’s curses and fascination with their unregulated emotions; hell, Belial’s own interest in guns was further proof.
None of that truly mattered, though. It was all approved and encouraged by dear Mother, and anything she desired would encounter no resistance. And if something did? They would find themselves as Yelah currently did: straight in the path of Belial’s guns.
______
Slowly, I felt my brain begin to turn its gears. I closed my still-hanging jaw as I stared at the Rotor. How could this have happened?
Was this the queen’s doing?
No, not likely. I shook my head and slowly reached for Grehn and Vlugh, who both started when I touched them. The Rotor had always been there. I knew from basic history that the founder’s ingenious device had been destroyed once before, but that was forever ago, back when it was way smaller and Yiwi was a budding town instead of a bustling city. The shaft blocked my view of the Fighters, people I had been fighting up close. People who probably didn’t know anything about the bees.
I needed to talk to them. There had to be some way to show them the battle in the shadows, the real danger. They didn’t deserve to die like this, not without at least being able to fight against the real threat.
Dip was also affected, but he didn’t see the Rotor the same way we humans did. I could feel he was mostly startled. We hadn’t been channeling [Friendly Immersion] too heavily before the explosion, so our current connection was pretty weak. I wasn’t trying to fight the civilians to kill them.
It was still enough for me to notice something I wouldn’t otherwise have sensed if I was still rattled.
Too late! Out of seemingly nowhere a bullet screamed towards me, and I barely managed to dodge thanks to Dip’s clarity. The thing grazed me, but it didn’t hurt at all, not even breaking my skin- Wait, what?
In the next instant I fell to the ground, my limbs disobeying my commands. I was almost able to resist thanks to my Ability, but with it being channeled so weakly I couldn’t fight back hard enough. Pain blossomed in my leg as it twitched uncontrollably and I groaned, completely confused. Something strange had been shot into my thigh.
People began shouting around me as I strengthened my connection with Dip, alleviating the pain. I had enough strength to move my arms and dig my fingers into the wound that had somehow appeared in my leg, pulling out a strange bullet. It was built for piercing, and the craftsmanship was sort of shoddy, but the material was strange. Some sparks flew, and I dropped it in fear.
Electricity.
“Attack! We’re being-“ my warning was cut off as I sensed more incoming shots and dove out of the way, successfully dodging the shots that rained on the ground and left no marks. Shit, it happened again! Pain erupted out of seemingly nowhere, this time on my other thigh and left arm. The shock was far more intense this time, making me crash into the ground. Something was making fake bullets and hiding the real ones.
Belphegora. And bullets that could easily penetrate my armor… shit.
I tried to yell a warning, to no avail. From my spot on the ground, I had a clear view of something moving through the smoke and dust, making it swirl in strange patterns. A swarm of incredibly pissed off bees.
Grehn and Vlugh had been whirling around, trying to find the source of the gunfire, but they froze when they saw the swarm. Other people began to notice it too, and shots rang out as people fired into the sparse cloud of huge insects. Dip stood over me, protecting me as my friends tried to stay calm. If we got Linked, it could mean disaster for the defense, so they had to keep a careful eye on our surroundings to prevent it. But that only gave the bees more leeway to attack.
Of course, the other mercenaries didn’t quite care about any Linking. They didn’t know much about it, after all.
“So thos’re the monsters-“
“Finally, a real fight-“
“Bees?”
I tried to warn everybody again, but the shocks kept going. Where the hell had the queen gotten the power of electricity from? Something so forbidden did make sense for her, but still. How?
I watched as people’s gunfire failed to make any notable dent in the swarm as they simply dodged in perfect coordination. They stuck close together and yet stayed far enough apart that every attempt to gun them down was met with open air. They descended, and I recognized warriors approach a man with stingers at the ready. He screamed as they stung him, only briefly struggling to penetrate his sturdy mindforged leather armor before filling him with holes. When a group ran to his aid, they suffered a variety of odd effects. One man began swinging wildly, hitting his comrade with a sword strike. One woman seemed to freeze and fall to the ground convulsing, apparently also a victim of these freakish electric bullets.
The rest simply couldn’t break through the swarm. Sword met stinger, and the mercs who underestimated the bees’ individual power suffered for it. I had no idea that the queen had sent along this many warriors, and the fact that Belial was also present? Things were looking very, very bad.
“Focus on the swarm! Focus fire!” Vlugh shouted. Grehn had been shouting too, but his voice was too soft even when screamed at the top of his lungs. The mercenaries began to move, shaking off the shock of the Rotor completely. Many were still shaken, but mercenaries were nothing if not adaptable, and a sudden burst of energy from a threat to their lives worked wonders to improve focus.
People began using their Abilities, which forced the swarm to retreat somewhat. Their complex movements slowly became predictable, a weakness of perfection. But even with that, they too began to adapt, moving in more varied and bizarre ways. That would be the direct influence of the queen and her incomprehensible Mind.
Through all this, I struggled to regain control of my body. It was like I had become a puppet whose strings had been cut or tangled in a strange way. Grehn and Vlugh both activated their Abilities for the first time in a while as I attempted to stand.
Grehn’s sword began to glow a faint blue, the sign of the Ability he had been taught from his homeland. He swung and an arc of water flew out of his blade, forcing the swarm to dodge again. He clipped the wings of a warrior who began to fall, but it righted itself with its Mind. It did slow down, though.
Vlugh, meanwhile, took a deep breath. I could feel the heat building in his stomach as he used his own Ability, and when he shouted, for he did shout, a cone of fire exploded outwards instead of his voice. Fire and Abilities related to it weren’t being looked kindly upon lately, and the way Drevani used it was just weird, but I had to admit it made for an impressive spectacle.
And a useful one. Belphegora herself was forced to emerge to block the flames with her Mind, which she did seemingly without breaking a sweat. But I was pretty sure Vlugh had planned that.
“That one is strong! Careful!”
If the mercenaries saw for themselves which bee to watch for, it would be valuable information. I had told them about a bee with a big bottom, but it was hard to understand without seeing it yourself.
Well, considering Belphegora’s size, maybe it wasn’t so unbelievable.
The bees had started with a strong surprise attack, but the mercenaries quickly adapted. Attacks similar to Grehn’s occasionally found purchase, injuring bees and slowing them down. And the more the mercs learned about them, the better we could combat them. The bees had taken a big risk facing us head on. They were strong, no doubt, but unless the strength was unimaginably overwhelming, then our numbers and variety of Abilities could face them.
Grehn was about to make another slash, but he pivoted, trying to cut in a different direction. I saw Linkers where he launched the water arc, but they moved out of the way in time. We still needed to be somewhat defensive. And the swarm wasn’t slouching either. Even as they dodged attacks and sometimes got injured, they still took down tens of mercenaries with their own tricks and brute force.
What we needed was to expose or overpower them. If Yoho made it soon, as I had been told he would, then maybe…
Maybe we could still win.