“I was supposed to take over this ccccitty.” Altar told them. “First you took my son, and now that conquesssst from my handsss.”

Vintarics ran this way and that, surrounding Altar against Scepter and the humans. Their numbers kept piling up, and Victor was frozen in place.

He needed to find a way out but whichever way he looked seemed to be barricaded at once. The Vintarics wouldn’t swarm them until Altar gave the order, and he was busy talking.

“You couldn’t have the Hive, ssso you let it get destroyed? Issss that what you call honourrable, Scepterrrr?” Altar asked her.

He was about to call the Vintarics on them, when a plan came to Victor’s mind.

“How did you lose against him before?” Victor whispered the question to Scepter. The giant Vintaric’s antennae twitched and he had to nudge to get her attention.

“He called the Hive,” Scepter told him. “I could fight him but not with ten of his strongest by his side.”

“Didn’t you send your hive members against her!?” Victor shouted loud enough to hear over the chittering of the grasshoppers.

“What kind of Hive leader does that?” Victor asked. “If you want to fight and prove yourself, do it yourself! After all, you’re stronger than all of us, aren’t you?!” Victor told him.

When the Vintarics turned to await Altar’s orders, Victor knew he was successful. They were a bunch of warmongers at heart. If the strongest among them couldn’t take on Scepter and her human allies, he’d look weak.

“If you ssseek a fight, it shall be on equal terrrmsss,” Altar called forth his most elite members there.

Six other Vintaric Adults surrounded him. They were made of sterner stuff than most, bigger than the rest of their kind and with different colours to boot. Some of them would have powers beyond what normal Vintarics were capable of, and Victor had to watch for them.

The large Grandsmith tower was bursting into flames when the battle began. Altar descended from the skies with his allies in tow, while Victor braced against the impact.

Floors exploded, turrets fell, Angelos invaded and Vintarics ran. And Victor blasted Altar in the face with his Ignistone pistol. The shot was infused and the bullet enflamed, but it simply annoyed the Vintaric. He fired at Victor, narrowly missing the man’s body. Victor jumped over one of his allies instead and shot into his abdomen.

His stomach frosted over and Victor applied Slowdown. He shot Slowdown bullets at Altar as well, but the Vintaric blocked them with his wings.

Cannon fire kept raining from the top of the buildings, tearing up the ground further as the battle continued. Victor wasn’t sure how Altar was maintaining control of them while fighting them, but he didn’t have the time to think.

He was slashed and bit across his body and a bullet hit his left arm, leaving it in pain. He had to jump to dodge around, barely able to make it through because he’d used his Slowdown bullets. The others were teaming up against the Adults, but Victor had to contend with two of them by his own self.

One of the Adults opened his mouth to breath lightning. Victor heard a single crack before the Vintaric lost control and started spraying it all over the walls.

He took cover inside of the building but another Adult followed him. Victor shot into his face as he readied a cannon, forcing the Vintaric to swallow it.

The Adult slashed at his arms and knocked the guns out of his hands instead. Victor rolled under his next slash and placed a hand against the its carapace. He slowed it down but the Vintaric was opening its mouth for another blast.

Victor grabbed the first thing from his belt and threw it into its mouth. He was glad it was the combat knife he’d infused, as it stretched and pierced right through the Vintaric’s brain.

The fire died in its throat and its body spasmed. Then it dropped to the ground, giving Victor a bare moment to breathe. He took the knife and his guns and ran back out into the carnage, ready to face his enemies.

He grit his teeth when he found Leo at the edge of the open area, with Ashley holding him in her arms. Her face was stained with tears and fire was exploding around her.

Victor hated what he thought next. It wasn’t condolence. He was annoyed she was so still on a battlefield. Without a word he grabbed the woman and hauled her up. It flared her anger and he felt his hand burn from the touch.

Ashley jerked away from his touch and growled out the next few words.

“He’s dead, you idiot!”

“You’ll be too, you idiot!” Victor replied.

Ashley got the message. Another Vintaric was hounding Amadeus and Lillie, the last of them.

When they looked up above, they could see Altar and Scepter rolling in the air, bouncing between the walls of the building and knocking floors loose.

Victor ran to help Amadeus but Ashley beat him to it. A white hot jet of flame went over his head and covered the Vintaric. It skittered about enflamed across the ground, having completely forgotten its prey.

All eyes turned to the last of the Vintaric Adults then. That one formed guns atop its body not unlike Scepter, and had them fire on the crew.

Lillie pulled up a pane of light and the group huddled behind it. Ashley shot more flames away from her body, curving around the pane and towards the Vintaric.

The force of the blast was enough to knock it against the wall. Victor shot it full of Slowdown bullets and watched the effect take hold on the monster. Amadeus let loose lightning that scorched its carapace while Lillie pinned it against the wall.

To end it all, Ashley fired a burst of flame through into the monster, engulfing Lillie’s pane and the monster both. It was left smouldering as its limbs went limp underneath it.

When it finally dropped to the ground, the group thought they might rest. But they glimpsed above themselves to see there wouldn’t be a spare breath to be found. The fighting between Scepter and Altar was growing more fierce, and the both of them were jumping around the walls like madmen.

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“Lillie! Platform!” Victor asked as she nodded in his direction.

A horizontal pane appeared ahead of them and the group jumped on. It rose through the floors while Victor and the rest shot down falling debris and furniture.

Lillie had to jerk it around the cannon fire so she planted her friends’ feet deeper into the pane to compensate. It was still a jarring experience, but at least they would make it up in one piece.

Once they reached close enough to matter, Altar took notice.

“And here are the humans! I thought you wanted fairness!” Altar taunted as guns floated up beside him.

“Fairness is overrated,” Victor replied.

Altar glanced down towards the bodies of his allies and his antennae twitched in annoyance. He looked around himself but all of the other Vintarics were too busy to reply. They were locked into combat with Angelos across the city, trying to escape.

“What’ssss wrong, Altarrr. No way out?” Scepter taunted him with her rifle in her hands.

“Just one. Through you.”

Altar and Scepter fired at the same time. one a wall of bullets, the other a precise shot through. Scepter caught Altar through the wing and tore a chunk out of it. The Hive leader couldn’t sustain his flight and had to hang onto the walls for support.

Instead of flying around the place, Altar instead started to skitter quickly across those same walls, taking shots and avoiding the rain of magic from the other side.

Scepter shot into the walls where Altar was, missing and instead tearing holes that reached through to the other end. the shells would be lost somewhere in the middle of the city, but Victor didn’t think Scepter had any need for ammo.

He tried his best to catch Altar, but the fire from the turrets above made it impossible. His footing wasn’t solid and that threw his aim off. He needed a better vantage point.

And that’s what he found when he looked above him. a straight piece of flooring was jutting out, providing the perfect space for placing his shot.

“Lillie, get me some platforms up there!” Victor ordered.

He jumped over the steps quick as he could. Cannon fire destroyed them a second after he passed, but Victor made it to the point without any damage. He kneeled there and thought to take a moment. But he knew it wasn’t the time.

Altar was still skittering around and he was pelting Scepter with more and more bullets. The flying blue Vintaric was getting worn down from the fight before the Hive leader delivered the final blow.

Victor aimed with his ignistone pistol. The Flame Bullet worked better with it than it did his other pistol. He layered an Infused Attack atop it, and finished it off with a Slowdown bullet.

The miasma emanating from the gun made him wary, but Victor still took aim right at the moving Altar. Sometime he would have to slow down, take a turn. He waited as the giant Vintaric went up, down, left right all over the walls over and over.

The debris gave him some pause and he had to hope his bullet didn’t crash into a piece as it flew.

Just a bit closer… a bit slower and…. There!

Victor fired. The bullet left the chamber with a distorted twang. The air coiled around it, burning up in its flames before it crashed into Altar’s shell with a crack.

The Vintaric slowed down right then. Not as much as a Vintaric Adult should, but it was enough. He was just making the opening, the others were the real moneymakers.

Scepter aimed her huge sniper rifle right in front of Altar. The bug tried to skitter from the wall but Amadeus fired red lightning into its body, sapping its strength. Lillie boxed it in panes of light and Ashley covered it in flames.

Altar then tried to jump away, expanding his metallic wings in an instant. But immediately he was rocked back into the wall. A hole appeared in his chest, pooling with blood leaking down his chest. Then another. And another.

Shells fell from Scepter’s rifle as she fired over and over at the Hive leader. The turrets stopped moving and Altar tried to claw away. But it was worthless.

More bullets, fire and lightning blasted into him until the entire side of the wall was covered in smoke and the sound of gunfire.

Amadeus had long stopped by that point, but Ashley and Scepter kept their assault up till they heard Altar’s body crash through several floors.

Victor stood up from his spot and watched as a platform appeared in front of him. He took it down where Scepter was, and saw the poor condition of the Vintaric.

She was bruised, a thousand little bullet holes littering her carapace. But she was alive, and there was a fire in her eyes that he recognized.

Victory.

He had Lillie take her with him to the rubble they’d buried Altar in. The group floated along light panes to reach it, and once they did, they took one final look at the Hive leader.

his legs were crushed and one of his antennae were broken off. the entire front of his body was covered in his own blood as he tried uselessly to dig himself out of his grave.

Scepter was the first to speak to him, through heavy breaths.

“You arrre defeated. I have defeated you. I shall now lead the Hive!” Scepter gloated over the body. She looked to Ashley afterwards.

“W-we can help each otherrrrrr, Scepterrrr,” Altar begged with his last breath, but the crystal blue Vintaric wasn’t listening.

“You have the rrright to kill him for your brrrotherrr,” she gave Ashley permission.

Flames wicked to life around her, but they were different this time. not the white hot flames he usually knew her for. But a blue flame instead, a cold kind of fury.

They coalesced into a ball of fire ahead of her, glowing as bright as a jet engine. Then she sprayed it all over Altar and watched him scream his life away.

When the deed was done, Ashley wiped a few tears off of her face. Victor wanted to say some words, but he knew there were better times. He instead harvested the Seed out of Altar’s body and stored them in a pack.

“We’re done here for now. The Hive is displaced. Scepter’s going to take charge of what’s left. Let’s go back,” Victor told the whole group.

Thankfully, the Gate to earth had stayed intact despite the ruins around them. Victor had wondered if breaking them apart would remove them, but it seemed he was mistaken.

Guess it wouldn’t be so easy to get rid of them, he wondered as he jumped through.

On the other side of the Gate lay many more Vintarics. The others readied themselves for a fight, but Victor let Scepter walk on through instead.

“Stop!”

The Vintarics ceased at once.

“What have you done? Where is Altarrrr?” one of the older Adults asked her, perched atop a bus stop.

“Altarrrr has been taken down! In fairrr combat, with hissss rules!” Scepter told them. “I am your Hive Leaderrrr now. And I will not tolerrrate underrrhanded dissenterrrrs!”

The chittering between them all began in earnest after that. They convened for a while, and Scepter was taken along with the adults to ask a better account. By the time she returned, she had news for them.

“Thank you, humanssss. And you, Ashley,” Scepter said the name with a certain fondness. “I have earrrned the right to lead, becaussse of you all. What do you asssk in returrrrn?”

Victor stepped up.

“That you leave earth alone and find your food elsewhere,” Victor told her. It was the one thing he truly wanted.

“And nothing elssssee?” Scepter asked.

“Nothing.”

Scepter paused for a moment, thinking over the request.

“It shall be done,” she answered him.

Victor was glad to see her go, and the other Vintarics with her. They left the city and disappeared into the desert. He stood himself to watch her and her subordinates leave, along with the rest of his friends.

Ashley seemed the most hesitant of them all to part with the newly made Hive Leader.

“They could’ve helped us instead, couldn’t they? And we could find them food. Both of us would’ve won that way,” Ashley suggested.

“I could go and bring them back now,” she added eagerly.

“They’re bugs, Ash,” Victor replied curtly, “Just because one of them seems nice doesn’t mean they all are. At their core, they’re still hungry monsters ready to rip us apart.”

“But Scepter changed. And she’s keeping her promise. What makes her so different from the rest of them?”

Victor scowled.

“Nothing. But I don’t want them anywhere near the base. If you’ve got a problem, you can go with them.”

But she didn’t. She knew where her allegiances really were, with the humans who had been affected by the Fall the most. The survivors instead of the aggressors. Ashley kept quiet after that, like she didn’t have the energy to argue.

Victor had been bothered by her words, however. And he let it keep him awake the rest of the night. None of the others talked to him then. He was alone on the rooftops.

Even Chekhtana was absent, having been taken by the Professor and kept as something of a pet.

Victor was cold then. He rolled Altar’s Seed over and over in his hand.

He just needed to put the whole affair behind him. And the first step would be getting rid of the Seed in his hand.

Victor let it sink into his skin, letting that all-too familiar feeling course through his veins. He exhaled and swiped away the notifications that followed, heading to sleep.