“Everyone ready?” one of the spirits within the hive asked. 

“No,” another spirit answered. “But since when has that stopped us? LET’S DO THIS!”

With the cry, the hive went into action. The spirits drew on the energy within them, but was careful not to draw on everything. This was just another experiment. The hive gathered just what was needed and poured the energy into the horse.

Unlike what they did with the unicorns, the hive did not throw the energy all over the creature but instead focused the energy on the back of the animal. Then, the hive remembered the various birds they had absorbed in the past and the energy responded.

The influx of energy change the horse but this time, the change came at the direction of the hive. From the back of the horse, two wings sprung into being. The horse was shocked by the wings and neighed in fright. This in turn caused the wings to move and before anyone knew it, the winged horse was in the air.

The now flying horse was in the air and it looked shocked. The horse turned its head left and right before making a 360 degree turn…in mid-air! By the time the flying horse finished the turn, the hive was convinced the flying horse was delighted by its new power. It was not the only one. All around the room, the various creatures within all had looks of awe on their faces.

When the Werewolves and Ratlings returned to the tunnels, they brought back with them various creatures. There was a cow, two goats, a few chickens, and 15 human children. However the creature the hive was most delighted with was the pig. Finally, it could create the flying pig!

That was before some of the spirits within the hive asked a very important question; how do they create wings? Not only has the hive never done so before, they had never even tried to create any body parts before. Till now, all their creations were random. The hive had till now never even tried to control how their creatures would turn out.

What’s worse was that the Werewolves and Ratlings only brought back one pig! The hive knew they couldn’t make a mistake on the pig so the spirits decided to do what they normally do. They would just through trial and error keep going till they figure out how to get wings on a creature. Luckily for the spirits, there were a lot of materials for them to experiment on. Since the human children were the most numerous, the hive decided to use them first.  To the hive, the initial results were less than desired.

The hive told the Werewolves to bring forward the humans. The first human child that was brought forward looked at the hive in puzzlement. The hive gathered their power and poured it in to the child. The hive did not know what they were doing, only that they wanted to create wings for the creature to fly. Wings meant birds so the hive thought the various birds they had absorbed in the past and let the power take over. Following its instinct had worked till now right?

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The human child began to glow almost immediately and as the glow got brighter, she began to change. The spirits within the hive became excited when black feathers began to grow on the child’s back, but the change did not stop there. The child’s head began to change as well. The child’s head began to look birdlike with his nose turning into a long beak. Black feathers began to grow on the child’s body, arms and legs as well and when the glow began to subside, the final result was a creature that looked more like a bird than a human. In fact, the creature in front of the hive was a bird with human legs and arms. Even then, there were feathers on the creature’s arms and legs!

That was not what the hive wanted. They wanted a pig that could fly. Not a flying creature with just the face of a pig. The hive tried this with 4 other human children but the results were the same. All 5 creatures could fly but they all looked more like birds than humans. This was when the hive noticed that the same thing happened to the past creatures they created as well.

When they mixed a wolf with a human, the Werewolves looked more like wolves than humans.  When they mixed a rat with a human, the Ratlings looked more like rats than humans. Immediately the spirits realized that mixing creatures was not the way to go about it. An idea came to the hive but just to be sure, the hive decided to try more experiments before going onto the pig.

It ordered the Werewolves to bring forward another human child. Just like always, the hive gathered their power and poured it in to the child, but this time the spirits concentrated on the face of the child, hoping to keep it humanlike. On that front at least, they succeeded.

The human child that was brought forward was a female and the hive directed the power to the child’s body, keeping the child’s face free of its power. Feathers grew on the child’s arms…and did not stop. When the glow began to subside, the ending result was a creature that had a human face but the body of a bird. However the creature’s arms had become wings and the creature’s legs were those of a bird with talons!

Not exactly what the hive wanted but with this, the hive now knew it could directed its power to specific body parts and change only the part of the creature it wanted to change. It was a promising development and the hive decided to try it out with the other human children to make sure this was not a fluke.

It was not. 4 tries later, the hive got 5 creatures that looked similar to each other. That was when the spirits within the hive decided to go for it. For the last 5 human children, the hive only concentrated on the back of the children, not allowing its power to seep to other parts of the body.

Finally, it met with success! Wings grew on the back of each of the last 5 children. The wings were white in colour and the children were nearly humans, with only the added body parts of wings on their part! The success galvanised the spirits but several of the spirits within the hive argued against changing the pig immediately.

The hive had already knew from past experiments that energy changes creatures differently so the spirits argued that the hive did not know if they would get the same results if they did the same thing to the pig. Just because it managed to grow wings on humans, doesn’t necessarily mean it would get the same result for a pig. Fearing the problem, this time the hive decided to use another creature for an experiment. The spirits decided to use the horse and this was the result.

A flying horse! In fact, with all the flying creatures in their room, the spirits within the hive wondered where in the tunnels all the flying creatures could fly. Several of the spirits suggested they build another level in the tunnels, only this time they build it for the flying creatures. That’s a question for later though. For now, the hive spread its power forward and said.

*Bring forward the pig!* 

END OF Book 2

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