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33: Willow, Junior Hunter

Postby dreamweevil » Tue May 23, 2017 6:56 am

Willow: While there are subtle variations, the colony has nine different ranks, perhaps twelve different "jobs" depending on how you count them; and one brilliant concept is that each of us, in theory, gets to experience most if not all of them eventually. Hatchlings are either Janitors or Sentinels-- little difference there, really. The next rank is the Engineers, who are responsible for building or maintaining the Hive itself. This is followed by Junior Hunter; these girls are permitted to leave the hive but are always under the watchful eyes of a Hunter or Scout. They're trainees, effectively, helping the Hunters gather the resources the Hive needs to operate.

I have to give Aeris and her friend Mary tremendous credit: working together, they invented this. It's adventurous. It's organized. It's challenging. And at each level, save the one I've apparently skipped, there's something completely new to learn, to work on, to excel at.

A hatchling has a stinger but no venom to speak of. They're too small to do much except maintenance and perhaps sentinel duty. And though I didn't mind most of the role, the one thing I did mind was having to change floors: my tiny wings barely hold my body weight. There are no stairs: that's one of The Hive's many integral defenses. To get from place to place you have to be able to fly, hover, turn in place, and, most importantly, know where you're going.

I'd barely settled in on the twenty-third floor when I'm unceremoniously relocated to the twelfth. I am to be, immediately and for the duration of this role, paired with a Hunter, whom I will be an apprentice to. Problem now is that I'm very small, even for a Junior Hunter: though I've been given the proper growth hormones to reach that stage, it still takes time-- and food.

Food is something the hunters have in great supply. While most food in the colony ends up in the body of the queen, the hunters get as much fuel as they need, at least if they do their jobs well.

I'm paired up one of the higher-ranked hunters, Janiss, for my training, because they tend to put the most capable hunters with the least capable Junior Hunters. I could sense that disappointment on Janiss face when we first met, she shrugged it off. She started like most of these training sessions do: the ground rules, of which there are plenty. Janiss will be in charge of me day and night: I am to be by her side at all times unless she tells me otherwise, and then I am to be available to her on a moment's notice. This was all fine with me: I intended to attack this position with professionalism and dedication, as I had my former janitorial duties.

Janiss smiled at me. "I get to teach you how to fly," she said.

"I... I know how to fly. At least... I did," I answered. I remembered that part of my past life, indeed, in great detail.

"Wait... Oh! You were an avian! I knew we'd gotten a few of those. They're fast. How'd we get you, if you don't mind me asking?"

Janiss' question caused memories to come flooding back. Memories the queen hadn't erased; did not want to erase. "I was walking. For a change of pace. And they just... dropped out of the sky... Bambi. I remember Bambi."

"Bambi?" Janiss smiled. "She went through the ranks quickly, didn't she? She's a scout now." Only at Scout or above is anyone permitted to take solitary flights. Scouts are master hunters who have astounding range and are just one step away from Queen's Guard, two steps away from becoming queen themselves.

I was about to try to remember the circumstances of my capture, the other two girls who were with Bambi-- one was a Hunter, the other possibly a Scout; but I was distracted, for at that moment a pair of hunters arrived carrying a paralyzed human being.

"This," Janiss pointed, "is what it's all about. Watch."

The human was struggling. It was a man, I remember that much. He had been stung twice, once in the abdomen and once in the thigh, and was seeping blood from the sting to his belly. One sting was likely by the trainee Junior Hunter, once by her mentor, just to make sure the paralysis held.

Janiss put her hand on my head to encourage me to sit and stay quiet, and just watch.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it!" I heard him cry.

"This has got to be tough to watch," Janiss said. "But it's important. Just remember, he's going to be alright, just different. Our Queen will take good care of him."

Their trainee sat just like I was sitting, to watch and learn.

One of the hunters, Amanda, grabbed the man from behind, and lifted him into the air.

"Wait! Put me down!"

"Shhh," Amanda said. "I'll take good care of you."

"We're not always that nice to them," Janiss whispered, continuing the tutorial. "Though I tend to be nice most of the time. When you're a hunter someday it'll be up to you."

The slit appeared in the underside of Amanda's tail. She curled her tail around herself and startled her human captive by gulping half of his body at once.

"No! What's going on?" the unfortunate man yelled.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" Amanda the hunter whispered, seductively. I could see her picking out her landing spot on the ground, nearly bumping both their heads on the ceiling as she prepared to drive him further into himself with sheer momentum.

I leaned over and whispered to Janiss: "When this happened to me, it was in the Queen's Chamber, not the the hunters' lodge." It had a much higher ceiling.

"You were a VIP. Special permission," Janiss whispered. "Normally, humans are never allowed near the place, even paralyzed."

Thump. The hunter landed on the floor, driving her captive into her tail, about up to his nipples.

The human's paralysis was wearing off just in time. He looked right at me. "Please! Save me!"

"Ssh," the hunter said. "That's Willow. She's just learning. She's going to be a great hunter. Perhaps, before long, so will you."

"No! Never!"

Amanda turned he head and looked at Janiss. "I like it when they struggle," Amanda said, starting the rhythmic, sexual motion that would expand her body enough to take him.

"Yeah. It's the best."

I watched as Amanda started to push the man into her body, building up the orgasm-like point where she puts both hands on his head and pushes him the rest of the way in. A few seconds later, Amanda's tail closed and her wings started beating.

"How do you know when they're... digested enough to deliver to the queen?" I whispered.

"You are just full of questions, aren't you, Willow? I love it." Janiss put her hand in my hair, between my antennae, and tousled my hair. "I love this girl!", she said loudly, as there was no longer a human to listen in. (I could still see him struggling within Amanda's body, though.) "You'll just know. The digestion process pretty much comes to a stop on its own, so the timing isn't critical. Don't procrastinate too long, though: sometimes the queen's busy. Multiple patrols might return with a catch just before yours, and sometimes the queen is laying eggs and you might have to just wait. I tend to head up there not long after my victim's inside."

Amanda looked at me. "I rarely wait much at all, Willow. In fact I'll head up now."

"Oh. Thanks, Amanda!"

"No problem! Pay good attention and you'll be doing this yourself in no time!"

Amanda flew away, with her apprentice dutifully following.

"So they get to... see the queen now?"

"The Junior Hunter might not, at least the first few times. At first you'll likely be asked to wait outside, in the queen's reception room."

"Oh." I had vague memories of it.

"So... are you okay with all this? It's okay if you're not. I remember the first time I saw a human getting ... absorbed like that. It creeped me out. I didn't think I'd be able to do it myself, ever."

I felt, inside, this incredible relief as she said those words. Because, for an instant, it did creep me out.

"Who was your mentor, back then?"

"One of the best. Melissa."

"Melissa... She was the... scout who... found me."

Another hunter, Yvette, piped up. "No, she wasn't. I heard about that story, Willow. It was the apprentice, Bambi, who spotted you. That's why she's a Scout now. It wasn't even a hunting trip: they were way outside our territory, doing some mapping. When Bambi spotted you, they did a very wide circle around you and came at you from behind."

I remember that I had bright yellow feathers. With a black stripe. I could have been spotted from miles away; I must have been insanely brilliant in the ultraviolet spectrum on a sunny day.

For now, I nestled next to Janiss. "Let's get some meat on you, shall we?" she asked, tucking my head into her bosom. Unlike the others who'd given me miserly rations, Janiss had a huge supply of sweet nectar for me, and it felt great. I could feel my body warm, and begin to grow. The first tingles down near the base of my tail as my venom glands came alive.

Overnight, she fed me so much that she was starving. She told me so much, and woke me up: "Come on, let's go."

I startled awake. Her wings came to life. She hovered over to another Hunter, who was awake and reading a book she'd found, and tapped her on the shoulder.

Next thing we were winding our way towards the exit. Janiss and the other hunter, Tiffany, exchanged updates with the guards just inside. There were no updates: we'd be the first mission of the day.

My instructions were to stay close, just behind Janiss and Tiffany, and concentrate on staying in formation, not bumping into them, and keeping up. Otherwise I was only there to watch.

It was almost completely dark out. And it was cold. Hints of a possible sunrise off to one horizon. Yet in what scant light there was, I found it amazing to be watching these two women from behind: sleek, sexy bodies. Their wings were much quieter than I remembered: a quiet hum, not the frightening buzz my human ears heard.

"What do you think, Willow?" Tiffany asked me. "Nice to get out early, isn't it?"

She's exactly correct. I love it, the open space, the fresh air. At this very instant, there's is nothing I'd rather be doing, nobody I'd rather be with. I notice that my wings are noisier than either of theirs; but with the full meal and strengthened wing muscles it's no longer difficult to fly. "How come you're so quiet?" I ask, finally.

"You'll be quieter once your wings grow a little more," Janiss answered. "Oh. You're thinking about the buzz? Like this?"

For a second or so, Janiss' wings emitted a frighteningly loud buzz. Even as a bee myself, it gave me shivers; sounded like she was angry.

"That's intentional. Our wings are, a lot larger and much slower than the insect we're modeled after, even though it doesn't look that way. When we get back I'll show you how to make the buzz: it instinctively frightens the *!)%)# out of humans, makes them easier to capture. Right now we're going for stealth, take advantage of the darkness."

Tiffany pointed at a row of suburban houses. "There."

"Got it." They changed directions suddenly and I fell out of formation: I was used to the more sweeping turns of my... friends...? I tried to remember, which caused me to fall further behind: I had to make a sharp right and drop and I lost my two mentors in the darkness. To find them I glided for a moment, which does not work as well for a bee-girl as it does an avian, and listened for the hum.

"Willow!" scolded Janiss.

"Sorry!" I went to explain but was shushed. We landed in the grass by one house. "Quick. Under here."

We ducked under the branches of a tree in a front yard, and flattened ourselves out. We waited. I knew to remain absolutely silent. Nothing happened for fifteen minutes.

A door opened on a house three houses down, other side of the street. Far away and dark and yet crystal clear to my eyes. A woman, coming out in her bathrobe to get her mail, or newspaper?

She looked up, into the sky, saw nothing, proceeded down her front sidewalk, away from her home. Tiffany moved and Janiss put an hand on her: not yet. The woman made it to her mailbox, stopped, looked around again, then looked down.

"Now."

A running start and the three of us covered the distance in just a couple of seconds. Janiss and I separated the woman from her front door; Tiffany landed on the other side, surrounding her.

I expected a scream. For her to run. For anything to happen.

"You're out early," the woman said, straightening herself out. My sense of panic struck: why is this human not frightened out of her gourd.

"No children?" Janiss asked.

"No." This woman was at 5.0, I could tell, so of course she wouldn't have children. For some she reason looked substantially older than the "sexy teenager" look most 5.0-humans seem to go for. "My husband's awake. You can have him too if you want."

"Sorry, Willow, I was hoping for something a little more exciting your first time out."

"???"

"Happens all the time. She wants to be caught."

"Not exactly wants, but resigned to it," the woman said. "Except from my dear husband, You people have already taken everyone dearest to me. I understand, we're deep in your territory and all, but..."

"You won't regret it," Tiffany said. "You'll be out here with us in no time. Here, I'll do this one--" Tiffany launched into the air, curled her tail behind the woman and stung her right in her behind.

"Willow, you stay here, with her. She's not going anywhere now." Janiss followed Tiffany into the house; the front door was unlocked. (I'd learn later that you never go into a human house alone: that's how you get killed.) There was a crash, a commotion, then a desperate-looking man at the front bay window of his home looking upon his wife, who was crumpled in a heap by my feet. I saw Janiss behind him, poising her stinger; the quick thrust, holding it just long enough...

Tiffany held the man in her arms. She had to struggle to drag him through the door. "Helena--" he gasped.

"I'm here, my sweet," the woman at my feet pleaded.

"There's no defense against the poison?" he asked.

"Not that we've ever found," his wife answered.

Tiffany got the man out of the doorway, spread her wings, and carried him over to where I was. Janiss emerged from the house an moment later. Took a moment to turn the lights off and close the door.

"Strip him for me, Willow." Tiffany held the man aloft, just out of my reach, and I figured out I needed to fly just a few feet up and hover. With Tiffany adjusting her grip as needed, I stripped the man of his pants, his shirt, leaving him naked and shivering, all his clothes and possessions in a pile directly underneath him. Janiss lifted the woman into the air and I performed the same task for her.

We wasted no time getting back to The Hive, checked in with the guards and then to the eighth floor. Janiss and Tiffany lined up next to each other so the man and woman could, with the little strength they could muster, actually hold hands right up to the last possible second: when their armpits reached the warm openings of Janniss' and Tiffany's tails, and they were separated and then drawn inside-- never to see daylight again.

"Your first hunt is a success, Willow!"

Tiffany caressed her tail. "I think the Queen will fuse these two into one body," she said. "I'll ask her to, at least."

Janiss lifted her body into the air: her now-heavy tail, containing the woman, dangling underneath. "I'm sure she will. But for now..."

Janiss landed again, but her tail was still squirming and churning, beginning its digestion of her prey. I could see the pleasure across Janiss' face, as then Tiffany's, as they liberated valuable nutrients from the two humans.

Yes, it bothered me. The humans were still alive; I could sense that not all of the motion of the hunter's tails was from the hunters' own muscles. But the humans were melting away before my eyes. The hunters' bodies were recharging as a result. Refilling their venom glands, adding power to their wings, and all I could do was watch. Well, not exactly.

"Come here, Willow," Janiss said. "You earned your share of this." She unfastened her top and invited me to her bosom, and I drank. There was no growth hormone here: I'd yet to earn that, of course, but my body would grow stronger just from the nutrition; I'd be able to fill my own venom sac, fly faster and farther after each feeding, and it felt good.

What have I become?

. . .

Janiss had barely emerged from the Queen's chamber, quite a few kilograms lighter than when she went in, when the alarm sounded.

A drill, my first. I looked. The queen's reception room has a well guarded passage to the nurseries, and a number of hatchlings were about but none of them bothered in the least. How do they not hear that?

The drill itself was unremarkable. I followed Janiss as I always do, and we flew quickly from the main entrance of the Hive and went where the Soldiers told us to go, and surrounded the bee-girl that I know understand is, effectively, the Head Soldier, over one hundred stingers pointing threateningly at the simulated attacker; mine was of them. Then an all-clear signal, and back into the hive.

But it did give me a question. How did I hear the alarm but the hatchlings don't?

Janiss smiled at me. "Here." She gingerly ran her fingers upwards from the base of one of my antennae to the tip, straightening it as she went up. I keep forgetting I have these; I can't see them, after all, except if the ends of them dangle in front of my face like they sometimes do.

"You mean these are functional?" I'd always figured they were decorative, you know, a cute little touch, a design from a little girl's sketchbook years ago.

"Radio."

"Radio???"

"Spread-spectrum frequency modulation, dual bands, variable power, beam forming, and of course encrypted."

"Are you actually saying that I have a radio transmitter in my head??"

"I sure am. Your brain's electrical, wasn't even that hard to implement. Any of us can sound that alarm, Willow. The hatchlings don't hear it because it's not meaningful to them, they aren't tuned into it. You don't even have to think about it. Look over there."

Janiss pointed me at a blank wall.

"You can hear me?"

I knew in that instant that the words didn't come through my ears.

"Yes"--

"Not that way--"

"Yes", I said. I just kept my mouth shut and imagined Janiss, and Janiss alone, hearing that message.

"There you go," I heard, again, without my ears. It wasn't so much words-- very much similar to sharing thoughts.

"If you're up high enough, you can get almost fifty miles' range."

"Whoa."

"We tend not to use it anytime we don't have to. The humans have no clue we've got this and we'd prefer to keep it that way. But it does really come in handy, and... as you see, it's pretty automatic."

I felt another burst of respect for Queen Aeris and her best friend Mary.

"What happened to Mary?"

"Swarmed out about six months ago. She's Queen Bee of her own hive now."

"So they never get to see each other?"

"They will, someday."

That spilled dozens of questions into my head, but I got the sense that Janiss had had enough questions for one day; she was curling up into her bed, and tapped the spot next to her. I took the hint, and snuggled up, and we slept.
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34: Junior Hunter, Part 2

Postby dreamweevil » Wed May 24, 2017 3:42 am

Willow: This was my life now. Over and over, we sallied forth from the hive several times per day, usually with Tiffany but always with Janiss. Sometimes-- more than half, perhaps sixty percent, we'd return empty handed, rest up, head out again. A few times we had particular missions: a specific human target: the Queen's Guard kept up on the news of the human world and they'd usually elect to take out anyone that spoke poorly of us, didn't show the proper respect, or that the Guard felt would be a future threat. Our team was good at those missions, and they were different. Humans always look up into the sky to see if we're coming, think they're safe if they can't hear or see us. They never look down on the ground, or even up in a tree.

It was about eight missions out before Janiss told me that I'd be delivering the sting on this one. And it was really, really hard because the target-- and we had a specific target, having earned that reputation-- was a girl. A young girl, perhaps nine years old, maybe ten.

Janiss didn't tell me until we were in the air, on the way. I freaked out. "I thought we didn't take children!"

"It's a cleanup job," Janiss answered. "Her parents lied to the team that got them this morning-- said they didn't have any children."

"When will people figure that out?" Tiffany said, as she made note of landmarks. "If they'd just admitted they had children, they'd all have been left alone. If you lie to protect your children, you end up with orphans."

"It's usually the team lead's job to get the truth, either before or after the sting," Janiss explained. "This time they got fooled. The Guard pieced it together later on. This girl's alone and scared out of her wits. You can soothe her, Willow, you don't look much older than she is. Tell her that she'll be rejoined with her parents soon enough."

"Really? She'll be rejoined with them?"

"Yes. Not in the way she might expect, but... yes."

"You've got to do this, Willow. We know you can. You've proven yourself this far. Just put your mind into it and you can do this."

We found the girl's house. Tiffany remained outside, guarding: nobody would challenge her. Any neighbors, even what's left of the police, would have known this was coming, known there's nothing they can do stop it.

Janiss unlocked the door-- I'm not sure exactly how-- and we went inside. Nothing. Janiss cursed about how difficult it was to get her huge tail around corners in houses like this one. The intel, from scouts circling well above, said she was home. We went room to room. I found and checked her bedroom-- it had a sign on the door, "Lisa's room". Nothing, not under the bed, not in the closet.

"Here", Janiss shouted. Lisa was shivering in a closet in her parent's room. Janiss stood out of the way and let me approach. I went to touch Lisa's hair with my fingers and she flinched, rolled herself into an even tighter ball.

"Lisa," I whispered.

"Lisa," Janiss relayed. "It's going to be fine."

"Why?? Why did you take my Mom and my Dad? Why? You miserable, miserable insects!"

I didn't know what to say. So Janiss took over. "It was a mistake, Lisa. Your parents were very brave. They lied to protect you. I'm very sorry for that. Nobody deserves to be as frightened as you are right now. And having a big, scary bee in your house isn't making it any better."

"Then why don't you both just get out and leave me alone??" Lisa cried.

Janiss prodded me again to take over. So I tried. "Your parents are going to be fine, Lisa."

"Right. I saw you kill them." She burst into tears again.

"That wasn't me. But... no, it's just paralysis, Lisa. Temporary. Here. Look at me." She wouldn't. "Look at me!"

Finally, her eyes peeked out from under her arm. I knelt down close. "I used to be just like you, not that long ago. Your parents are back at our hive right now. It's just a building, a nice place where we all live. The queen will turn them into bee-girls just like me. They'll still be there, just in a different form, that's all. If we do the same for you, you can... rejoin them, Lisa.'

"Why? Why do it then?"

"It's just... how things work now, Lisa. It's going to be fine. You'll see."

A message from Tiffany over the radio in my head. "How's it going?"

"Fine," answered Janiss. "Willow's talking her down. She's doing well."

"But I don't want to be a bee!!" cried Lisa. "You're loud and buzzy and obnoxious and we always have to be on the lookout for you and you kill people's parents!"

"No, they're not dead," Janiss tried to object.

"I used to think the same thing," I said. "I was frightened by them. I was walking down the street one day minding my own business when I was surrounded, captured. But now... Now I get it, Lisa. I'm still 'me', really. And now I can fly, I have dozens of sisters and friends and it's really a lot cooler than you'd think. I'd like to get you back there, Lisa, so you're not too far behind your parents, probably in the same brood, even. You can learn to be bee-girls together. I'll even teach you, personally, how to fly. How does that sound?"

In part, I knew this would be a lie. Most likely, the queen would recombine Lisa with both of her parents, make one bee-girl out of the three of them. The queen would erase any memory of my having lied to her.

Still, it worked. Lisa seemed to soften for a moment and then ducked down again without saying anything.

"Come on out, Lisa. It's okay," Janiss said. "There's nothing left for you here now. Come with us."

This unwound some of my progress. "But there are things left! I've got my friends and my--"

"You want to be with Mom and Dad, don't you?"

Come on, hurry up, Tiffany said. That signal meant that Tiffany was getting nervous, her obvious lookout position starting to attract attention.

Ugh. This is why I hate dealing with children. Just sting her, Janiss finally ordered. We're not getting anywhere here; we can deal with this back home.

But...

Just do it, Willow.

I went to hesitate, to object; just a few more seconds and I'd have her convinced; but then I looked at the roadmap ahead: not only did I need to convince to come with us, but also to let me sting her, paralyze her, end her freedom as a human being. Janiss was right. I was prolonging the crying girl's misery and her fate was inevitable.

So, rather than risk Janiss' wrath or be branded an insolent Junior Hunter, the worst kind, I did exactly what she said. I lifted myself to the ceiling, curled my tail, which unlike Janiss' could easily fit through the closet door, picked a spot that I felt would do the least damage and jabbed my stinger at Lisa. I felt it go in, soft and vulnerable human flesh, perhaps scraping a bone?

Do it, Janiss insisted.

Lisa looked at me with the puppy-dog eyes of one who'd just suffered complete, utter betrayal. She looked down where my stinger was in her leg. She knew what was coming next.

Come on, Janiss said. Delaying isn't helping her.

Dutifully, I squeezed my venom gland. I felt the warm liquid squirt out of me and into my prey, where her bloodstream would obidiently carry it away and spread it through her helpless body. I shivered, and suddenly withdrew my stinger, which seemed to hurt Lisa more than either the initial sting or her poisoning.

There wasn't much blood, fortunately.

"Well done," Janiss said, out loud. Lisa cried and put her hand to her leg while she still could.

"Get her out of there," Janiss ordered.

I pried her from the closet; her legs already limp, useless, and her arms no longer really under her control. Then the long slog out of the closet, down the hallway, down the stairs.

Come on, guys, hurry it up, Tiffany sent from the front yard.

We made it, at last, out the door. "You carry her," Janiss said, which I was now large enough to easily do.

Before taking off, I asked: "What about her clothes?"

"Too cold today, and I have no intent of parading a naked young girl over the streets. Just check for a phone. We'll undress her back at the hive.

I couldn't hold Lisa up and pat her down at the same time. Tiffany realized this and did the pat-down for me. "She's clean."

"Okay," I answered. I looked to the sky, redoubled my grip on Lisa, and sprung into the air.

It was a terrible flight: my worst ever, because Lisa could do nothing but cry and complain. "I can't feel my legs!" "I'm afraid of heights!" "Don't drop me!"
Her head soon started to flop like I remembered my own doing when Jillian was carrying me, and I flashed back to how afraid I was then. Now I'm on the other side of it and imagining my venom circulating through the helpless girl's body, preparing to shut down her vital organs. Her body felt very heavy to me; my wings were up to the task, but my heart wasn't.

I made it back, buzzing over the streets leading toward The Hive, swooping down to pick up momentum, through the vacant fourth floor and up into the main entrance on that momentum alone, landing in the right place so the guards could approve my entrance and scan my passenger to make sure she wasn't a threat. I was starting to know the guard's names at last, and I saw a hint of sympathy on one of them as she saw that my passenger was a child.

I released my grip on Lisa and held her facing me, supporting her head. She'd be entering the pins and needles stage-- a brief reprieve where she'll be able to start controlling some of her muscles again. I flew her up to the eighth floor, where I turned her over to Janiss like I thought I was supposed to. Janiss came over and stripped Lisa of her clothes but didn't take the girl herself.

"This one's yours, Willow."

"What?"

"Willow... that's your name? I... what's going on...?" Lisa cried, tears rolling down her face.

"She's small enough for you. She may as well be your first," Janiss said.

"But-- But I--"

"It's the best thing for her," Janiss said.

I flew up into the air like I knew I was supposed to. I curled my tail but was nervous and almost stung Lisa on the bottom of her foot.

"I... I can't--"

I was tired and hungry, and I didn't know how to open myself up the right way, but mostly I just didn't want to do this. I only admitted to the third of those four things.

"Just push, almost like you have to go to the bathroom," another hunter said, watching me along with her own trainee.

I looked down. I saw, for the first time, that tiny slit appear near my stinger. The longer I held it the more it opened.

"Willow..." the girl whispered, weakly.

"I-- I can't--!"

Janiss flew over to me in an instant. "Oh, for heaven's sake! Here." She wrestled Lisa from me, backed away, and quickly got her tail underneath the girl. The hole in her tail appeared, and she speared Lisa's legs into the opening. I backed away, not wanting to watch but unable to take my eyes off of it. Janiss wasted little time swallowing Lisa; the girl was small enough that she pretty much disappeared with a single gulp. Janiss leaned back and closed her eyes. Her tail squirmed. Eyes still closed, Janiss smiled like she was enjoying a particularly tasty meal-- which, in a way, she was.

. . .

"I know this was a hard one," Janiss said, after returning from the Queen's chamber. "I'm sorry if I expected too much of you. But you have to know, Willow, that you'll never make Guard, much less Hunter, if can't do this. Even the ones that want to be taken have second thoughts at this point in their lives, Willow. Making it easy on them actually makes it harder for them."

"I'm sorry."

"Despite all this, for some reason the Queen just did you a huge favor."

"Really? What??"

"I'm not going to tell you. Not today."

"Oh."

She didn't feed me that night. I didn't deserve it. This was the first time I'd ever disappointed anyone since joining the hive. I'd let everyone down: Janiss, Tiffany, the Queen, but especially Lisa. I screwed up. But I still don't know if I can do this.

. . .

For the next three outings Janiss neither asked me to digest nor even sting our chosen prey. I'd been benched. I don't blame her and just stood quietly, assisted like a good assistant.

Finally, early one morning, I felt Janiss startle awake, and got some sense of alarm through my head. I sat up. Most of the hunters were awake, but this wasn't a drill, or the kind of threat to the hive that the drills simulated. This was something much more specific, but I wasn't getting the message directly: it wasn't aimed at the Junior Hunters like myself.

"What is it?" I finally asked.

Janiss looked into my eyes as she was continuing her radio-chat with other girls, and suddenly tuned me in. "I'll take it," she said.

"Me too," Tiffany said. Several other Hunters volunteered. Meanwhile I worked to decode what was going on. Far away. Crap. One of the better hunters, Caitlin, is in trouble, eleven miles away to our northeast. She ws doing pretty much the same play as on my first trip: hide in the bushes very early in the morning and wait for someone to leave the house, but her team was ambushed. Her trainee, one of my best friends, is hurt-- we don't know how badly.

Caitlin's message was very clear over the radio channel. "He knows you'll be coming. Be careful."

Janiss looked at me. "Come on."

"You're bringing her?" Violet asked.

"You want to go?" Janiss asked me.

"Of course," I said. By your side, day and night, unless you tell me otherwise.

"Good," Janiss said, making it very clear that this was the only correct answer.
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35: The Wild Beast Within

Postby dreamweevil » Thu May 25, 2017 7:46 am

Willow: It was worse than I thought. A man, huge, wearing a... motorcycle helmet and full body armor, visible through fabric that had been ripped when my sisters tried to attack him. Te armoring went all the way down to heavy boots-- impenetrable. Caitlin was backed into a corner as this man held a gun on her. Caitlin's partner was outside the garage, bleeding from her nose, unconscious. And he'd gotten himself and Caitlin, somehow, into his his own garage, where an aerial assault was impossible and the quarters too close for us to do much of anything.

In front of him, in a crumpled heap, lay Caitlin's trainee. She was breathing. But at least one arm was broken, and of her four wings one was broken, and two had been shredded. Her stinger had been broken. She wasn't bleeding but she was in pain.

"Ah. Right on schedule. The cavalry. What is this, only four of you? Does your queen think that little of you... or of me, I wonder?

"Well, ladies, what to do now?"

"What do you want?" Janiss asked.

"To be rid of you," the man said. "All of you. Forever."

"If you wanted us to leave you alone, you only ever had to ask," Janiss said.

It won't help. He knows he won't survive this: he just wants to take as many of us out as he can, Caitlin explained.

"True," Caitlin explained out loud, just to cover for the pause in the conversation.

Caitlin's apprentice whined. The man looked down. "Shut up!" he yelled, and kicked her.

I was furious, but in that instant I saw exactly what I was hoping I'd see. I let the rage take over, and charged the man from behind-- not stinger-first, but with my fists, like I'd forgotten I was a bee-girl, just a stupid apprentice. I held my wings back and used them to yank me backwards, cut my momentum, reduce the damage when he predictably swung an armored elbow at me and hit me square in the face. I went right to the ground on one wing on my side like I was hurt. I tried to move a couple of times, acting exactly like the "broken wing" maneuver that birds do.

"Willow!" Caitlin, Tiffany, and Janiss yelled together. They'd all seen what I did with my wings; knew I wasn't hurt as badly as it seemed.

Amanda: Make like you're about to get up.

Willow, are you crazy? I can't get up! He'll kill me!

I see where she's going with this, I think, Janiss sent. Just do it.

I waited. I had one shot at this. I tightened my venom glands, pleased to see that no venom leaked from me: a plug develops down there that prevents the venom from escaping until I hit something. I held that contraction and watched between the man's legs at Amanda.

She stretched her good wing and arm at the same time like she was about to jump up.

He fell for it. With his vision blocked in part by the helmet, he bent his head to look at Amanda. I couldn't see but knew what this meant: an inch-and-a-half of exposed skin between the collar of his armored vest and the back of his motorcycle helmet. With arms and shoulders braced against the cold cement of the garage floor, I swung my tail up, judging the distance as well as I could, and felt my stinger hit something warm yet hard, felt the venom release, immediately yanked it free because his reaction would be to snap his head back, which would have broken my stinger too. I just made it out: I felt the stinger almost trapped between those two hard surfaces.

He tightened up: Caitlin ducked in case the gun went off, but it didn't. And then he collapsed on the floor, partially on Amanda, who let out a yelp, and on me.

Caitlin, breathing heavily, walked over and with Janiss' help pulled him off of Amanda's broken body, and off of me. Then she pulled off his helmet.

The entire event, from my arrival to this moment, took less than two minutes. It felt like an absolute eternity. Janiss extended a hand and helped me to my feet.

"Holy epidural," Caitlin said. "Willow... you got him in his spine."

"But-- I didn't..." I went for the center of his neck because I thought I'd miss.

"Get that armor off him," Janiss said. "It may not be in his bloodstream, just blocking his nervous system temporarily."

All three of us worked to strip him of it. He had one more firearm on him, and a knife. We stripped him to his boxer shorts and lay him down on his garage floor to tend to Amanda and Heather.

"This is for Amanda," Caitlin said, stepping over the man and delivering a good, solid sting right to his belly button. He groaned and tried to reach for the new wound on his body, but his arms wouldn't listen to his brain.

Heather started to arouse, coughing, and Caitlin gingerly picked up her trainee with Tiffany's help.

I helped carry the man back to the hive with Janiss, As I flew, as I watched Caitlin carrying poor, broken Amanda in front of and below me, I could feel my blood boiling. Amanda was my friend. She'd trained with me. We'd spent hours on the very target practice that I just used to do what I did. She'd survive; her stinger would regrow, her wings and arm would heal, but it would take weeks, months, during which she couldn't train or hunt.

Caitlin flew Amanda right up to twenty-four where the nursery is. This is where the nurses, normally only tending to unseen larvae, would take care of her, feed her while she recovered. Caitlin would remain with her until she was stablilzed, for this is the other half of the apprentice relationship: the Hunter is responsible for her trainee.

As soon as I landed with our heavy captive on the eighth floor, I made my wishes very clear. "I want this one.'

"Well... Willow..." Janiss said. "You absolutely earned it, but... well, he's a little large for a Junior Hunter, you know--?"

"He's not large in my eyes."

"It's not exactly your eyes I'm worried about. But... hey, what the heck. Go for it."

"What the--" this man, whose name I never asked nor wanted to know, said, as I picked him up. I'd rested for a couple of minutes, and though he was indeed heavy I managed to hoist him into the air, my wings very, very loud even to my ears.

I lifted him even higher in my arms and brought my tail under him, moved him so he could watch as my tail-slit started to open underneath him.

"I've heard about this," he whispered. I quieted my wings as much as I could. "Go ahead. Turn me into one of you. This isn't over, Willow. Even as an effing bee, I'll be the meanest sumbitch you pussies have ever--"

"Who said you're going to be anything?" I whispered back, as I slipped my tail up over his legs.

"what??"

I leaned in close. "The queen only turns humans into bee-girls when she wants to. And after I tell her what you did to Amanda, and Heather, and Caitlin, I don't think she'll want to."

I spread my legs, stretched my tail out, picked the landing spot as Janiss and Tiffany and Heather three other hunters watched, and landed hard on the floor. It hurt a bit, but in a good way, and got this guy almost halfway in. My tail had swollen enough that my feet, straddling that tail, barely reached the floor, and I had to use my wings a bit to maintain balance. And then I focused on him and just worked with all my might on swallowing him.

"Then... what's... what's going to happen to me???"

"You should have thought of that before," Heather said. She had a bad bruise already on her cheek, and a swollen ear. "Do it, Willow."

"With pleasure, Heather," I said. I leaned in again. "So... what's going to happen to you? Well, first, I'm going to seal you inside myself. Then I'm going to release the other half of the venom."

"The... other half? What the hell?"

I laughed, which hurt a bit too as he was really filling me up. "What... you thought we just injected you with magic honey or something and waited for your wings and tail to sprout? That's not how this works at all. As soon as I close my tail up over your mouth and nose, while you're desperate for just one last breath, you'll feel me poison you. You'll feel your own heart stop beating. Then I'll have the unique pleasure of digesting you. When you're a nice soft, harmless lump of goo, the way my Queen likes it, it will then be my honor to feed you to her. What she does with you will be up to her, but I don't suspect she's going to be bestowing you any favors.

"You want to know the best part? I'm going to keep you completely conscious while all of that happens."

I let my wings buzz again to stifle any response, lifted myself from the floor again and reoriented my tail, releasing and changing my grip on him. I was very, very full, but a second landing forced him in, up to his armpits.

I rode atop my tail again like it was a bucking bronco. My unwitting epidural block had, indeed, worn off but Caitlin's venom was still circulating within him, preparing him for his fate. He resisted when I tried to get his beefy arms into me: Janiss got up to help, but with a combination of distraction and timing I managed to get his arms inside, and then worked hard to stretch my soft insides up and over his shoulders.

"She's going to do it," I heard Heather exclaim, with a whisper of astonishment.

Let yourself enjoy this, Janiss sent silently.

I plan to. But you're right, I don't know if he'll fit.

You can do it, Janiss said. If not, if it hurts too much, I'll help out: you can just deliver him into me headfirst. The orientation won't matter because there's no way the Queen is preserving this guy.

Thanks.

I felt this new, sexual excitement building within me: something I hadn't felt since I'd become a bee-girl, since... since... I can't remember. I didn't care how long this took. His increasing panic drove me to keep going, and I felt like I could do this forever.

"No... Please... Willow... I'm sorry."

Music to my ears. Deep inside myself I found some more room for him, let my tail bulge outwards more than I thought it would, and squirmed to bend him inside me to fit that space. I leaned back and the end of my tail moved closer toward me. Just a little more. I could taste him, taste his fear.

"Too late," I said. I put both hands on his head.

"No! I'll do anything!"

I pushed. The Hunters, watching me, all gasped.

That's it, you brute, you... human. In. Deep. There you go.

"Goodbye," I whispered. I still didn't know his name. I knew Caitlin knew it. The queen would know it. But I didn't want to know it.

I leaned way up so I could look him in the eyes as my tail-hole closed over his face, as the tissues just above my stinger swelled to seal the entrance. The venom release, as I found then, isn't really voluntary. I've got three venom glands, each with its own muscular sac: one feeds my stinger and is strong and voluntary; it's at the base of my tail in back. The other two have much weaker muscles, is involuntary, and are in front: they feed my... uterus, even though the bee-girls really have no name for that part of themselves. The liquid is very dark purple, almost black, and with my tail stretched so tight it's translucent, I could see the dark liquid flowing and then start spreading over the body of my prey. It would stop his metabolism, preserve some oxygen the protect his brain. I watched the dance, the lightning-bolt-like flow of my poison as the ventral sacs emptied.

I slid one hand over myself. I've got yellow and black peach-fuzz, not really visible from a distance, and as I soothed myself I watched the slit in my outer armoring zip itself closed, all the way to my stinger at the far end, until there was no hint that there was ever an opening there at all.

Janiss was standing, then, at my side.

"You did it. How does it feel?"

"Tight. But... wow."

"It won't stay tight like that for long. I'm proud of you, Willow. Really proud. The queen will be, too."

Janiss stood back a bit so I could get myself into the air, which was a little hard now that I was so heavy and not used to this particular balance, but I needed to get my tail out from under myself. I let my tail dangle like I'd seen the Hunters and other Junior Hunters after unbirthing. Freed from the weight of my human half atop it, it began squirming rythmically on its own, working the poison into my victim and starting the digestion process.

I felt some of my victim's energy start to flow into me. I went from feeling merely good, to great.

"You've done enough to earn that next promotion, Willow, I think. I'll talk to Leah about it, but I'm sure she'll agree."

"I don't want it yet," I said. The next rank would be that of Guard, the sentinels who guard the hive. "I don't feel like I've earned it. This is only my first catch; some of the other girls have five, eight. It wouldn't be fair. Besides..."

"Yes?"

"I like being with you, Janiss."

"So would anybody, Willow," Heather said, fluttering near me. "Janiss, that was absolutely brilliant. You've got the best trainer in the hive, Willow."

Janiss' cheeks flushed. "Thanks."

I was missing something. Heather clued me in. "After you balked at taking that unfortunate girl, she found someone you could get angry at. That's why she volunteered for this mission."

Janiss neither confirmed or denied that when I looked at her.

"And, Willow, you've got absolute dead aim. You've been practicing. You'll be a fearsome hunter, now that you've got a taste for it."

"Do you have a taste for it now, Willow?" asked Janiss.

I had to think for a second. But there was only one answer. "Yes." In my imagination, I saw myself attacking random humans with wild abandon, chasing them down with a loud buzz and diving at them stinger-first as they tried in vain to run from me. We don't really do it that way, we're not that ferocious, but I felt it: that hint of "wild beast" that is what drives a bee-girl to be a bee-girl in the first place. A wild beast under very delicate control. Sexy and in command. Just dangerous enough.

This was perfect.

I grinned at her. Yes. Janiss was brilliant.

I went from feeling good, to, within the span of about five minutes, great. I felt the human's arms melting away inside me, his legs melting together, his bones turning soft just like they were supposed to. The kneading action of my insides made up for his lack of movement. I realized then that I had one other huge thing to look forward to, just as Janiss mentioned it.

"Well, I think it's about time we get you upstairs."

Upstairs. Such weird phrasing: there are no stairs in the hive, but we've never coined a better term for it.

"Oh, right." Janiss led the way, through the mazes of corridors and chambers and openings between floors. There was one place where you had to fly down two floors, across and up again, before you could get to the upper levels and the Queen's Chamber; a detour, designed by the Engineers, that would foil any invader looking for a direct attack on the queen or her larvae. We landed.

"Congratulations," the two on-duty members of the Queen's Guard said in unison. "The queen will see you now."

"Nice," Janiss whispered. "No waiting."

"Sssh," I cautioned my own trainer.

The Queen's Chamber was immense, cavernous, yet I didn't see the queen anywhere. But then I heard her: her wings soft, almost melodic. When she came into view, around a corner, se was magnificent.

The general guidelines for her servants, meaning us, are that we are not permitted to set foot on her floor unless invited to do so: we are to remain in the air the entire time even if the queen elects to land or walk. This is an outgrowth of the key fact that all of us, even the hatchlings, are to protect the queen, above all else, at all times. But I didn't mind this at all: With the heavy load digesting away in my hind section, I felt better in the air than I did on the ground.

"Willow, I hear you helped to avert a tragedy today. Your friend Amanda is hurt but my nurses inform me that she'll recover."

"Thank you, your highness."

"I knew you would be capable, Willow. You are following, quite well, the path I've laid out for you. I look forward to seeing what you can do as a Hunter."

"I have only my trainer to thank for that, your highness. I am extraordinarily fortunate."

The queen nodded, apparently in agreement. She remained silent, and Janiss prodded me in the side of my tail. Oh, right. The queen is insanely busy and I'm here for a reason.

"Permission to approach, your majesty."

"Of course, Willow." The queen spread her arms, welcoming me into her embrace. I flew to her, carefully. Her human body was larger than mine: she was an adult in appearance, where I looked, perhaps, like a young teenager. But her tail was enormous: probably eight times the size of mine, if not larger: I had no idea how she could fly at all given how much it must weigh. But the way she postured herself made it look effortless.

And I got to mate, so to speak, with the Queen. She curled her tail under me just like Janiss said she would -- no wonder this chamber is so enormous! -- postioned her stinger so that it was just behind mine, barely grazing it, and opened an enormous cavern at the end of her tail, effortlessly. She could have swallowed me whole, I'm certain, if she wanted to. I moved my stinger out of the way, pushed to open myself to her, and then inserted the entire end of my tail into the opening within hers.

And then we held each other, exactly like two lovers, exactly like two women passionately connected to each other. I started to push what was left of the man from my body into hers.

"Slowly, Willow, dear," the queen whispered to me. "Don't rush it. Take your time. Enjoy. I know I will."

The queen, indeed, accepted my offering only very slowly, teasingly. The scent of her body filled the room, sweet and musky. About halfway through this she suddenly contracted her tail, sending my prey shooting back up into me, startling me to the point where I emitted a weird sound: "Eeep!"

The queen laughed. "Have fun with it, dear. It helps the digestion along."

"If I may be so forward as to ask..."

"Yes?"

"Will he become one of us?"

Janiss shook her head at me: this was clearly outside the realm of questions one ever asks the Queen.

"No, I don't believe so."

I realized then that it was a stupid question. She would not yet have been able to read his mind, a step that would occur well after I was back in the hunters' lodge.

"I'm sorry, your majesty."

"It's your first time, Willow. There will be plenty more, I trust."

"I will serve you to the best of my capacity." Heck, I'll keep you full single-handedly if I ever had to.

"Thank you, Willow." I felt her relax, and my prey slipped from my body to hers and was gone forever. I carefully extracted myself from her body, watched her close herself up as I did, said my thank you's and goodbyes and drifted away to where the door was, never turning my back to the queen for an instant.

"Nicely done, Janiss. Leah tells me you're in line for a promotion: I wholeheartedly support that decision, as soon as you're ready."

"Thank you, your highness." Janiss backed out with me, and we were both actually relieved when the Guard closed the door.

"Well done, Willow. Let's get back to the lodge, rest up for a bit and then we'll pick up another assignment, okay?"
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36: The Experience

Postby dreamweevil » Sat May 27, 2017 5:42 am

Willow: My breasts hurt.

That's the first thought I had, way early in the morning before any of hunters or junior hunters were awake.

I can't see it: it's completely dark at that time of the morning, but I can tell my body feels different. Bigger. Heavier. Oh.

I'd been subsisting until then like a child, depending on Janiss' kindness to let me feed from her, basically sharing some of her catch with me every time it happened. But that was subsistence. Now I'd had my first "meal", this huge, miserable brute of a man that I was very happy to rid the world of. My body was reacting to that, to the huge influx of nutrition, the protein building blocks I didn't know I wanted. Although the bulk of that difficult catch had been delivered to the queen, my body had, as was the agreement, kept what it needed for itself.

I reached up. Yes. I'm developing a bosom; that's why I'm sore. How many times do I have to go through this? They won't be functional until I reach the Nurse rank, and that's still two steps away. As daylight started to stream through our orangish, translucent "windows", I could see that my tail, which I'd stretched to its limit in swallowing my first and so far only prey of my own, hadn't diminished in size much at all. I was no longer the smallest Junior Hunter in the hive, and I was happy for that.

In the eighteenth floor recreation room we have a mirror, or a surface that the Engineers polished to function just like a mirror, and after the hive woke up for the morning, I asked Janiss' permission to visit. I looked much more the part now. More like a hunter, less like a trainee. I needed a new top, and my boots were tight, so visited the sixteenth floor and traded in my now-too-small garb for something more suitable.

I was hungry again.

Of the next six hunts, we were successful on all but one of them, and Janiss let me keep two. None of these were nearly as difficult as the previous missions: all people who wanted to join us, who followed our protocol. That had been a good part of the queen's plan: If you can convince a large population that we're their future, that becoming one of us is inevitable, then you don't get orphaned little girls or armor-wearing maniacs waving a gun at you. It's much more like "Here for your daily pickup, anything for me today?"

One time I even saw the thing the other girls had reported but I'd never witnessed myself: humans lined up to be carted away, some disappointed when we couldn't carry them all ("Sorry! Try again tomorrow!")

When you demoralize and start to empty a neighborhood, apparently it happens.

My body, at last, is big. Strong. That muscle-bound maniac would be no problem for me now, and I felt like a hunter at last.

Janiss saw it too. She asked, on our last morning, whether she wanted to assign a new Hunter to me, now that she was moving up to the Scout rank; Scouts don't have apprentices as they fly much further and higher than the Hunters do, well out of the range of any Junior Hunter. I said no, which she appreciated. I told her I'd never forget her: that, despite our impending change in roles, I'd be at her side at a moment's notice if she ever needed me.

"I know you would, Willow. You've been great. You'll do very well, I know. Good luck."

"It's all thanks to you, Janiss." I have her one last hug, then curled my tail around to rub the side of hers, and then we headed off to accept our promotions: Janiss to gain the longer, sleek body of a Scout, and I the additional defenses and more powerful venom of a Guard.

. . .

The Guard role was actually my least favorite in some ways. I made good friends, yes, but there really is a lot of standing around: you get to know that fifth floor main entrance, the emergency exits, and every single bee-girl in the hive pretty quickly. You help the lead Guard coordinate our drills. You keep track of where everyone is: who's out on a mission? Who's dealing with a (fortunately rare) rescue situation? Is the Hive building too hot or too cold? Space assignments: Which sleeping areas are available for our new members? Any maintenance jobs pending for the Engineers? And, of course, dealing with every request that the Scouts or Queen's Guard come up with.

I see Janiss every day if I'm on main-entrance duty, but it's brief: you can't stop and chat here as the flow through that entrance gets pretty substantial at certain times of the day and we don't want any backups or collisions!

I did well enough. I like being strong, tough, feeling the respect of every bee (regardless of rank), threw myself into the role and was as professional as I could be. There were a lot of graduating Junior Hunters now, and with the Queen's chosen number of slots for each rank that meant nobody was Guard for very long.

I'd expected the role of Nurse to be... well, even more boring. Here, rather than interact with practically every girl in the colony, you're kept very isolated, the environment very quiet, and you take care of the nurseries, larvae, and the newest hatchlings.

The bonus for becoming Guard is size, and strength. At the Nurse rank, the elixir unlocks the ability to lactate: to feed our young, to share nutrition with those of lower rank. But the real bonus for me was getting to see my friend Amanda again.

After Amanda's injury, Amanda was sent to the nursery to heal, and shortly thereafter was given a double promotion, skipping the Guard role and becoming Nurse herself. This was an ideal situation: Nurses rarely, if ever, leave the hive, remaining in a small (and highly protected) area with plentiful food, clean water, and eager Hatchlings to help with much of the grunt work. Her arm had healed by the time I saw her, and her stinger looked okay to me, but she hadn't attempted to use her delicate wings yet. I'd expected a big hug but she rushed me straight to nursery C.

"Not coincidentally, you're just in time." She hurried me past rows of empty egg-cells, past rows of wriggling larvae, to one bee that was close to hatching.

"I can't nurse anyone yet," I said. I'd had my promotion only minutes earlier, could only barely feel the tingling in my chest starting.

"That's okay. I just wanted you to be here."

I leaned in close. The bee in question was facing away, in her translucent "skin". She was just starting to become impatient, the last step before hatching. I could see her black-and-yellow tail, cute, tiny little stinger that would be soft and blunt. Then she started to pry herself out of her old larval case, and in doing so, turned over.

"Wow... she looks... familiar," I said. Then I realized exactly who she looked exactly like: the little girl that Janiss had found in her parents' closet.

Nurse ground rule number one is that you never tell a new bee her old name. I didn't even risk radio, then, and mouthed the name to Amanda. "Lisa?"

Amanda nodded excitedly. "You can even say it out loud. The queen let her keep her name, her appearance, and her old body. You stay here with her. I'll be back in a jiffy."

This would have meant I was the only one left among the forty or so larvae.

"Don't worry," Amanda said, testing her wings just a bit on her way out the door. "Nobody else is hatching for at least an hour. Just Lisa. Stay with her; I'll help you out. I've got to check on someone else."

Lisa became very active, wriggling and thrashing like she needed to be out of this container she was in. Exactly the way she did when Janiss' tail closed up about her many weeks earlier. Wow. Has it been that long? Yes, I guess it has.

She burst free, and grabbed a huge breath, coughed, and opened her eyes. This would be the first moment that she could really remember.

"I'm... alive?" she whispered. These are the most common words a new hatchling says.

I tried to make my voice as soothing, as pleasant, as I could. "Yes, you're very much alive. Welcome to The Hive, Lisa."

She didn't answer, was resting up from the effort of hatching as she had, and then freed herself the rest of the way, wet and sticky. Amanda had left our bathing cart within reach: this had warm washcloths and clean water. I took this and began cleaning and drying Lisa's new body. She looked exactly as before, except for the antennae and smallish bee-tail.

"I'm... a bee," she noted.

"Bee girl," I corrected. "Our newest hatchling."

"You... I know you," she said, eyes staring at me.

I figured that honesty was the best way to go here. "I'm... the one who... stung you."

"Willow," she said.

"That's right."

Suddenly Lisa's eyes brightened remarkably. She was looking at the doorway behind me. "Mom??"

I spun. It was another hatchling in the doorway, with Amanda just behind, and Amanda was absolutely beaming.

"Yes, honey! Oh, Lisa, you're alive, you made it!!" the other hatchling cried, in a voice that sounded more mature than the girl who emitted it. "Look at me! We're the same age now! And we'll never be apart again!"

The other bee came into the room, still a little unsteady on her feet, and I helped Lisa sit up and they hugged, shaking each other like they were trying to wrestle with each other.

Turning to Amanda, the other bee cried, tears in her eyes: "Please, please, please give the Queen our thanks. My little Lisa is okay! And we're together!"

"I promise, we won't ever separate you," Amanda said.

"Where's Dad?" Lisa asked, suddenly realizing what had happened.

"He's here. With me!" Lisa's Mom patted herself. "We're together in one body! Hi, Lisa!," she blurted in a different-sounding voice.

I didn't even have to ask Amanda what had happened: the Queen might have given Lisa both of her parents, but had combined them into one body, in part as a punishment for lying to our Hunter about not having children.

"We have to feed these two," Amanda whispered. "They're hungry after they're born. You take Lisa."

"I don't think I can, yet."

"Just try. If your milk hasn't come in yet, it will within a few minutes, especially with a hungry hatchling trying to drain you."

. . .

Just like that, I was in heaven again. Amanda was assigned the same nursery, the same shift, as I: a friendship that had started at Hatchling would continue to grow. I watched Amanda heal and I watched Lisa and her Mom grow and I soon learned this new role, the amazement of welcoming bee-girl after bee-girl to our world, cleansing and feeding them and being the first contact in the new world that surrounded them; talking with them endlessly, guiding them into their first assignment and then their next, watching them grow, and-- one of the best and saddest parts of the job-- granting them the promotions they earned: from Hatchling to Engineer, from Engineer to Junior Hunter. This was the first time I got to see the overall hive population plan, which the Queen's Guard maintained: how many of us at each rank there were now, how many there needed to be. They keep it on a simple clipboard-like gadget and we copy the numbers to our own, but really it's not difficult to keep in our heads.

There will be more bees at Engineer than I've seen before. The queen is starting to plan our next swarm, and while a swarm involves every rank in the hive, the first major effort will always be building, and that takes Engineers. They are the only rank that produce the polymer resin used for construction: this is the only ability that is ever really lost during a promotion, during the entire career of a Bee Girl. The equipment an Engineer uses for building is replaced by a Junior Hunter's venom and ability to perform unbirthing.

The role of Nurse requires staying calm, being a calming influence, even when it's hectic. Sometimes too many hatchlings are emerging at once. Then there's a reprieve from it all, when the last hatchling has hatched and the nursery is spotless again: we report that up to the Queen's Guard, and take a break. I'd get permission to fly up to the "roof" of the hive with Amanda and watch over the city, and we'd talk and laugh about the funniest hatching stories we'd had so far.

If we returned to the nursery too early, we'd have to wait quietly as the queen laid her eggs. It's a messy process: there's this birthing gel that emerges along with the wriggling white "eggs", and the queen gets it everywhere as she moves from place to place. When she leaves us, and we're forbidden to say a word to her, we have quite a cleanup job ahead of us and no Hatchlings to help us (only Nurses, the Queen's Guard, the injured, and newly hatched Hatchlings are permitted here, though there are a few exceptions from time to time. Just about the time we got everything cleaned up, it'd be time to start cleaning, feeding, and taking care of the larvae the queen had just left us with. They recruited new Nurses out of the ranks of the Guard, but no sooner had they done this then a member of the Queen's Guard appeared with her clipboard and announced, quite formally, that it was time for Amanda and I to move on to Hunter, as soon as the last few hatchlings were out of our nursery and everything was spotless again.

The replacement nurses asked us who we'd like to choose as a trainee, if any. There was no question: I wanted Lisa. Amanda took Lisa's former parent. The nurses nodded, and left. They'd deliver those promtions later on.

After Amanda and I had moved down to the tenth floor -- there were no beds remaining on the ninth -- we sat down to wait for the Hunter transformation to take us. I remember feeling very hungry: feeding all those larvae and hatchlings is extraordinarily draining, and a Nurse gets very little nutrition of her own but is expected to expend resources she picked up as Junior Hunter.

"Do you ever wonder about your life before, Willow?" Amanda asked.

"I don't know. I suppose," I said. "I imagine myself as one of them, down there, running. I know I was an avian, that I could fly."

"I see a lot more of those now," Amanda said. "If this keeps up there'll be no humas left, someday. I wonder if you wanted to become a bee? I mean-- most of the avians I see are fast."

"I was walking," I said. "I think it was just for a change of pace. I was going to get something to eat."

"But you don't remember much before that, do you?"

"Not really."

"I hear that all of the memories of your old life are right there inside you. Locked up like the ability to nurse, or produce venom. In the last stage. Once you become Queen you remember everything."

"You think so?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. It makes sense, though, when you think about it."

Lisa had a human mother. And, once upon a time, a father. Did... I?

. . .


Becoming a Hunter sharpens your senses. Unlike the Junior Hunter, we're more aware of what's going on in the hive, what the hive needs from us at any given moment. And we're... hungry. We attend planning meetings where we decide, literally, what the day's attack plan will be. If there is one that day. Key, apparently, is to avoid any kind of pattern that the humans can use to predict our appearance. There are stretches of days -- we call them "holidays"-- that no hunt occurs at all. Sometimes we'll intentionally avoid an entire area for a while, lulling the humans into a false sense of safety, and then all at once every hunter in the colony will swarm that area and take a whole bunch of humans in a single day. Then we'd get word that we could back off for a while. I saw some other friends promoted to Scout.

Lisa took to it quite well. She took a little extra target practice with her stinger, but after several hunts I had her sting her first victim and she performed flawlessly. I loved this, seeing her grow, watching her proficiency improve. Her "Mom" wasn't so much her "Mom" anymore -- technically, we're all sisters, and I never heard them talking about the "old days". We flew, all four of us, right over their old house once and neither of them even seemed to notice it: just another uninteresting and empty human building.

Amanda and I would chat, later at night while our Junior Hunters slept, about this, and other things.

Just about the time that Lisa and her "Mom" were ready to graduate from the role, Amanda and I were tapped to move up to the Scout rank. It was tough to say goodbye to Lisa and her mother, but the hive needed us and we'd trained our apprentices quite well: they'd do well, I was sure.

Previously, Scouts were mostly invested into identifying, from great altitude, groups of humans that would make good bee-girls, They'd feed that information to the Hunters, and could provide aerial surveillance to keep the hunters safe, or and occasionally join the hunts themselves. But the Queen's Guard gave us a different mission entirely: we were to start a new effort, namely the siting of a new Hive. This was an immense project as we were searching at great distance and with very particular criteria. Queen Aeris had seen how effectively that we could control human overpopulation, and saw no need for additional hives in this area when we could, instead, protect wildlife, rainforests, and such from relentless human expansion that, for decades, had been destroying the ecosystem.

One thing surprised me. I'd always envisioned that the Queen was pretty much the all-powerful dictator: Everything I'd been taught, the drills, the hierarchy itself reinforced that thought. We all served our Queen. But, at the higher levels, I started to see that things were much more democratic than I'd been led to believe. The Scouts have their own lounge, and unlike Hunters we consult fairly frequently with the Queen's Guard: and, on very rare occasions, several of us are asked to the Queen's chamber to meet with the queen herself. In the Scout's Lounge, on the eighteenth floor, or in a planning room adjacent to the Queen's main hall, we would spread out plans and discuss strategy and actually disagree about things. Scouts would never question or challenge the Queen directly, but we now had input into how the Hive itself operated; could give suggestions, bounce ideas around.

So we discussed the plan. We looked at the number of Scouts we had available, the rate at which promotions were happening at each level, and the substantial number of possible different general locations that might be a good place for a hive. Though Scouts are permitted solo flights, and we have about three times the range of the average Hunter, the long distances involved meant that some journeys would be multiple-day trips each way. At the far end we'd be expected to investigate, even interact with, the humans of the area, get a sense for how welcome, feared, or at risk we might be in that area, find several potential sites with good access to water and that could be easily defended. Unlike our current location, we wouldn't be taking over an abandoned human building but rather building from scratch. We also had to come up with a plan for the swarm itself: the thousands of bee-girls (and a new, not-yet-chosen queen) that couldn't make the long flight in one hop: we'd need safe places to rest and refuel and good landmarks.

We had to be careful not to give away what we were doing. This is the ultimate NIMBY problem: nobody wants to discover a hive in their backyard where there was nothing but peace and quiet before. It must be a terrifying sight to anyone not used to our presence: the couple of scout bees arriving, signalling that the coast is clear, and then an hour-long stream of thousands of us arriving, immediately setting up a defensive perimeter before hunters launch their missions and next thing you know there's a small building where there was none before, and soon enough the Queen is safely inside and just like that we "own" the entire area, and the humans inside the territory learn to live with us or else.

Amanda and I agreed to take one of the longest possible trips together, when nobody else jumped in to volunteer. Too long a journey to spare more than two of us, far enough that if anything happened to us we'd be written off, and if we returned, we'd be depleted and starving but with essential knowledge. We didn't say anything, but we were both nervous, but the reward was immense. And we looked forward to having this much time together.

Perhaps I was too used to the comforts of The Hive. Perhaps Amanda and I got into too deep of conversations, about life, humans, hunting. It's easy to get philosophical when you're cruising across the countryside at such an altitude that even the highest avians were well below us. Perhaps it was the change of routine; but this is when the nightmares started.

I started to wonder more about my past. I knew I must have had one. Why don't I care? What was I doing out this way? Was one of these houses I flew over... my own? Did I leave someone behind who... saw me get taken?

I remember that I was on my way to... lunch. A restaurant, I don't remember which. And I have the very strong feeling that someone was with me: I was talking to someone before Bambi and Melissa and Jillian dropped out of the sky around me. But who was I with? A parent? Friend? Lover? What happened to that person-- did they run when I was attacked? No. Whoever I was talking to just disappeared. I protected... him. I don't know how. I don't remember.

We'd completed our survey and were on our way back when I finally asked Amanda: "Do you know anyone named 'Daisy'?"

"No."

"Then why do I keep hearing that name, like it's being whispered to me?"

Amanda, best friend in the whole world, sat up. "Maybe it's your old name."

"What... why?"

"We've been talking about our previous lives quite a bit on this trip, Willow. Your mind is running away with it. It might... might be... your old name. I don't know. Or you could have heard it anywhere. There's are four girls named 'Daisy' back home, were you thinking of one of them?"

"No."

"Don't mention this back at the Hive, Willow. If we make it back, we're both up for Queen's Guard and you know it. The Queen will know your old name, and if it turns out you've happened upon it, if some memories are leaking that way, you'll be stuck at Scout forever. I'd never forgive myself. I want you in the Guard with me, Willow."

"Okay." I never mentioned it again, not even to Amanda.

We made it back, were thankfully fed by the Hunters, and gave a complete report to the Queen's Guard and the other Scouts.

"Very well," the Queen said. She dismissed all of her Scouts and told us to wait in her reception area while she consulted with all but two of her Guard (the two being the ones always present at the door to her chambers).

We waited for about an hour, until darkness came, and then were welcomed back inside.

The Queen read off six names, in alphabetical order. Amanda was first. I was last. I expected to feel disappointment from the other Scouts, but sensed-- over radio, mostly-- a vague sense of relief. Which meant that the applause was genuine, the Queen's Guard welcoming us with hearty handshakes and very strong back-slaps, and-- get this-- actual human champagne in real glasses! (We have suppliers for these things: human merchants who trade the occasional goods for our services.) All of the Scouts were invited to the celebration, and all remained, late into the night.

They rotated the Guard after this, and closed the doors. The new addition meant that there were now forty-four members of the Queen's Guard, or at least there would be. One by one, same alphabetical order, we pledged our eternal loyalty to the Queen and to the rest of the Guard, then flew into the Queen's waiting arms and allowed her to bestow this gift upon us; the penultimate honor. Then it was time for us to sleep, grow, and get ready to serve our amazing Queen to the best of our ability, as I was completely devoted to doing.

. . .

The Queen's Guard has almost everything a Bee can have. Speed. Strength. Stamina. Venom that can stop anything: a horde of ravaging humans. An elephant. Other bees. They can take on any role in the hive, in an emergemcy, save that of Engineer. They lay their life down for the Queen as any of us would, but are uniquely equipped for that defense. And, just one step away from Queen, a vague, distant preview, a carrot-and-stick promise: ovaries. Immature, yes, but there; they would develop somewhat on the off-chance that someday I was chosen, against all odds, to make that final, unthinkable step.

"Daisy?"

This time it wasn't a nightmare. I was awake, and this voice was in my head like it was coming over the radio yet it wasn't.

"It's Rob. And it's time you woke up."
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37: Not Alone

Postby dreamweevil » Mon May 29, 2017 3:49 am

Meta: Once again I'd like to thank bigmacrmuk for his ongoing and terrific contributions, here, not only for the part of Rob but great ideas for direction to the story, and giving me someone to bounce ideas off of. It's been a terrific partnership. Thank you!! --dw

- - -

Rob: Here we go again.

I am trapped in the body of yet another girl, just a voice yet again, and I have to convince her to not follow a course of action which would end up with my identity destroyed - again.

Apparently this is now the only role for which I am suited.

I am beset by the ironies in my life. (Or at least what passes for it, right now - no body, remember?)

But... at least this time, the person carrying me around isn't actively hostile to me nor wants to punish me. The danger, however, is still there: it's who she now serves - and remaining just a voice, leaving no outside presence, until the time is right, is the only way I stay alive.

It took me a while to "wake up", as it were - of course I saw everything about the attack, those bee girls coming in and taking Daisy away, right through to her being "processed" (shudder), but after that there was something of a blank.

Until now. It was like someone had turned on a switch, and I had access to everything. Memories of all types, from before all of this happened (her working out the 6.0, implementing it using her computer, bringing herself out of Alicia and saving me in the process, right up to when she wa captured), as well as all of the memories of the events that had happened since, but I had not seen (That poor, poor orphan girl...)

All of that hit me pretty much like a brick.

But... it was all information. Stuff I could use. And seeing as my mind is the only weapon I have left (indeed, the best one I ever had), I intended to use it well.

So, for a little while, I remained silent, as Daisy (no, I'm not referring to her by her "other name", not ever: that's not who she really is) did her Scout work. There were little bits of memories that I parsed and sent off to her in the form of dreams - little hints about her past, at her past name and the things she had done. All intended to build for the moment when she got to the Queens Guard. When her body would be advanced enough and she would have just enough freedom for me to risk direct contact.

That, of course, is a real chance I'm taking in of itself - Queen's Guard, is, of course, only one step away from Queen. And if she's selected for that... then I'm in real trouble. She'll know everything if that happens... but she'll have no reason at all to seek to overcome the conditioning that's been placed on her. And it's highly likely that her first bee-girl will be... me.

Yup. That right there is what we call a worst-case scenario. (Though, perhaps not so much worse than what's happened to me before, come to think of it.)

So... I've got to convince her to do something - I'm not quite sure what yet - in order to get out of the Hive and get somewhere where the 6.0 updates can be returned to her...without alerting anyone else or aggravating her enough that she passes up the opportunity to become Queen just to give me up.

And... I'm on the clock. Apparently pretty soon there's going to be some kind of tournament that will decide who becomes the next Queen, to lead the next swarm and start a new colony, to take over, consume, and terrorize another part of the planet. Daisy will be looking to win that tournament. Can't let that happen. So...clock is ticking.

Piece of cake, huh?

So...after giving her some of the memories and planting at least a little costernation in her head, it was time to intiate direct contact.

"It's Rob...and it's time you woke up."

Before she could respond, I sent her some images. One of me, and one of her, in her avian form. Then a memory, of Alicia, what she had done to me and how Daisy had saved me. I didn't really go into detail on the 6.0 stuff... that could wait until later. Right now, I wanted to push some emotional buttons.

Of course, convincing someone that their memories are real isn't easy.

. . .

Willow: But... I am awake. Why... why do I remember this? This... isn't supposed to happen now. I can't handle it yet. A Queen, yes, a queen can handle the memories of who she used to be. But not--

I have vision of waking up. Sitting on a toilet. Scared because I was bleeding, remembering things I wasn't supposed to remember. I remember I cried out. Someone came to help me, told me everything was going to be okay.

Nobody's telling me that now. I have to look, at my body, make sure I am who I thought I was. The nice, smooth expanse of my tail. The stinger nobody would want to mess with. Four powerful wings that slice through air like nothing at all. Everything's in place. There's nothing wrong with me. My body is perfect. But it feels like... back then... was that my... old... life?

I look up. My best friend in the whole world is right here, with me. Amanda. She knows something's wrong.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes." It's a lie. "Just not used to these hormones, I guess."

"It is a lot, isn't it?" asks Amanda. "I thought it'd be like Guard, or Nurse, or Hunter... or any of them. It's not, though. Really intense," Amanda said. "Serious."

"It's a serious position," I answered. " I think I just need a little more time to chill, that's all."

Amanda is satisfied for the moment. She heads off to go check herself out in a mirror.

For an instant I want to be angry. Who are you and what are you doing in my head and don't you realize how important everything is right now because it all has to be perfect and how dare you???

I can't shake it. The memory of this Rob is clear. As clear, apparently, as Rob can get it. My... sister? Took his body? I ended up with him and promised him a new body but then I delayed making that happen and now-- he's stuck here? Inside me?

What in the world did I do to deserve this? How do I know any of it is real? Seriously, an imaginary friend at my age?

You actually want me to believe that I have another family out there somewhere?

Rob: Yes, Daisy, you do. You have a family - a real family, not one that you've just been conditioned to acccept - a life, an ambition. All of which are still there. Waiting for you.

Willow: No, no, no. I don't want to deal with this. Not now. Not when I'm so close. Didn't you hear that hey're going to start the Games? I have to be ready. Okay, it's a long shot, but if I make it to Queen, then, if Amanda's story is right I will remember everything. Then we can talk, deal with whatever it is you need, whatever I promised you. Yeah. A Queen would have that power, wouldn't she?

Okay. Okay. I'll make a deal with you, Rob. You... you just stay out of my thoughts for now, go back to whereever you came from. Look, I'm unlikely to be chosen. There are dozens of girls in the running for exactly one promotion. Ones who are far better than I, ones who've been doing this so much longer. Melissa. Bambi, Jillian. Violet. Tiffany. And especially Janiss. If I don't get it -- which is very likely, the odds are so against me -- then I'll have endless hours standing sentry outside the Queen's chamber. We can talk, figure out what to do with all this history you seem to have.

Ancient history, by the way. If there was anybody out there who cared about me, they gave up long ago.

If I do make it to Queen, then I fulfill my promise by turning you into me first, absolutely amazing daughter. You'll have a body of your own at last. Wouldn't that be fun, Rob? Soaring through the skies with nothing to fear?

Rob: I'm sorry, Daisy. But I'm not going anywhere - I'm very real, and it's your head I'm part of after all, so where would I go? When your sister took my body and nearly everything else, you saved my life, made me the guarantee of a better future for us all... and in return, I'm going to repay that favour and allow yout the opportunity to make that happen. You're an amazing being... and it's about time you were reminded of that.

Firstly, though, let's make things very clear between us. The other bee girls cannot know that I exist, nor that I'm causing you to recall memories. Doing so would be disastrous for us both, wouldn't you agree? I don't know what the Queen would do to you - but I can imagine it wouldn't be nice - and I likely wouldn't survive. So you can't tell them about me - unless you want to lose everything you've worked for here - and you can't force me to be silent. So this conversation is going to happen, and is going to keep happening.

Now... though the people out there have no idea where you are, they won't give up trying to find you, or think that you're dead. They're waiting for you, looking for you, even though time has passed - I'm not exactly sure on how much, by the way - but they're out there. You've seen the humans, seen the upgrades that they possessed - your family was a key part of that. You too were a key part - how else do you think Aeris was able to do to you what she's done here? You gave her that power in the first place. You took what your sisters had done... and perfected it, allowed these transformations. And you gave that power to her, amongst others. And now...here, these bee-girls have taken it upon themselves to do something...rather different with it. But it started with you. And out there, in the wide world, those same people are still looking for you, and work is still to be done.

Thirdly, the Games. Yes, I know they're coming up. You know better than I what your chances are, I'm sure, so I have no doubt that you're right when you say that you don't stand much chance. And if you don't win, then yes - we have all the time in the world to discuss matters with you standing your post, as you say.

But...there is a chance, however small...of you winning. And if you do, you will remember everything. Amanda was correct on that one.

But you will still be limited by who you are, Daisy. Unable and unwilling to change. You will be a bee girl Queen, nothing more. Preying on humans - innocent humans - in exactly the same way that your sister did all that time ago.

And... betraying me. I wanted a body where I was free, where my mind was my own. That was what you were offering me before. Now, you are offering me slavery, Daisy. Flying through the sky, huh? I would be flying with a ball and chain, only wrapped round my mind, not round my leg. The illusion of a choice. Just like your sister did.

And I know you're as far away from her as you can be. I remember who saved my life, my mind, my everything - you didn't have to, yet you had the compassion to bring me back and promise me a body. I'll never forget that.

So now... I offer you a choice in return. With no illusion. Listen to me... and I can help you get back what you have lost.

Willow: So... I was human. That's not a surprise to me: every girl here used to be human.

And I had a family. Okay. I'll accept that. But... here... look around us! Hundreds and hundreds of sisters who protect each other day and night: who care about me. I had... what... four family members? Look what one of them did to you, Rob! Those visions you sent me... your own girlfriend, laughing as she...

You really would rather that world than this one?

But... you know something? That does sound like me. From the way you described-- no, shared what happened, I think I would have saved you from that fate if I could... and apparently I did. So... here we are.

What I have no idea is what do to about it.

Okay. Alright. Since I'm getting the feeling that you're being completely honest with me, and if you say I promised to help you escape this prison you're in, then... okay, we'll talk and I'll listen. I agree with you: we can't say anything to anyone. Not even Amanda. We're going to keep everything between us. Okay. And if you've got a proposal, I'll see what I can do. Which may not be too much.

But meanwhile, Rob, I'm going to try my hardest in the Games. I want this: maybe I won't get chosen but I'd never forgive myself if I didn't try my hardest. You-- no voice in my head-- can stop that. I hope you're ready for it.

Rob: You were so, so much more than human, Daisy. But, unlike your sisters - unlike here - you never saw them as beneath you. As prey. You believed in them standing by themselves and taking the choice to change if and when they wanted to, not being ruled, forced into the choice by a poisonous stinger... or a closing vagina. Or by the threat of one.

What some members of your family did to me was terrible, but that is between them and myself. And there will be a reckoning on that score, one day. But I do not judge all humans on the actions of those few...not when they maintain independent will, and their minds are their own. Independent. Free to think, free to act. Free to be pulled up if they do wrong by someone capable of doing so. But free to choose.

Again, unlike here.

So yes, to answer your question - I would very much desire that world than this.

I'm truly glad that you believe what I said regarding our past. It was indeed you. You pointed out a way out for me - only I was too stubborn to take it at the time - and then when that way was taken from me anyway, you managed to get me out, using a method only you could have devised. Perhaps you used some of my previous coding knowledge too - I'm not sure, but either way... yes, you saved me. Because you knew what was happening was wrong.

Now the positions are inverted... and I'm here, asking you to not make the same mistake I did at first.

I'm also glad that you agree we can tell no one of this. And that you'll listen. I'm looking for you to fulfill that promise, and I'm going to do everything I can to help you do it. Right now... if I'm honest, I don't have that much of a plan, but my mind hasn't let me down yet. I don't intend for it to do so now. Perhaps the radio you use...transmissions, and you having some time where you can leave the Hive - that would be a possible way. Though the frequency would have to be different...I'll think about it more. I'm a little curious, though - how would you propose fulfilling this promise to me in a way that doesn't involve me becoming beholden to you anyway?

Regarding the Games... well, we'll just see about that, won't we?

Willow: Okay, I suppose that's... fair enough.

I... I don't know how to fulfill that promise to you, Rob. The only path I see foward would be a very, very long one. I've been working this out in my head. Even on the off chance that I were to become a Queen Bee, that transformation takes some time. Okay. We can ride through that together. But... my understanding, and my time in the nursery confirms that the Queen has a lot of latitude in just who she gives birth to. Look at Lisa! She also... apparently, filters the memories of those humans she's given. Amanda seems to think that those memories are locked away inside each of us; which makes sense to me: our brains are in our heads, just like a human's. The Queen simply could not store the memories of each of her children in her own head, not without hitting the horizon, the limit of her own brain. And... well, if something ever happened to the queen, all those memories would be lost... forever.

So let's presume that Amanda is correct. My old memories are here, inside me, but unlike you, apparently, they're locked away in an area to which only the Queen holds the key.

She must not have known about you at all--

Wait-- that's it. That makes perfect sense now. I was walking to that deli... the River Mill Deli... and you were the one I was talking to? You weren't alongside me but in my head? And when the bees came for me I tucked you way down inside myself-- that's how you "disappaeared". Of course!

Queen Aeris must have... missed you. She transferred you like you were part of my core personality. She should have filtered you out but she... missed you. Then the growth hormones awakened you?

I have no way to be certain... but if that's true, Rob, that means you're... saving... me like I saved you? These aren't my own memories being accidentally unlocked, but rather, your copies of them?

Yes, I know about the filtering. I know the Queen can selectively remove the more painful memories from us as she transforms us. Things that would interfere with our happiness here. You have copies of memories that the queen didn't know to filter.

Perhaps it'd be better if I still didn't know some of these things. What my sister did to you. What your own girlfriend did to you. That you were ever afraid of a woman, of what she could do to you. That you still resent it.

Because that's not my experience here. Could we be that different? Rob, I remember being stung. I remember Bambi's stinger going into my leg, the smile on her face right before she injected me with her poison. I remember her closing "vagina", just like you remember, apparently, my sister's.

But... I'm okay with it. I deserved what I got. I like the way she caressed me inside herself as she took my body apart. The Queen might have filtered some memories from me, locked others away, but... perhaps those were the bad memories I'd rather have been rid of, anyway?

Okay. Path forward. If I'm queen, and I have control of that filtering, then as soon as I can bear young, I bear you. Yes, you'll be a girl. And a bee. I don't think I can help that. But I can promise to leave your memories intact, Rob. You'll have a body of your own and the other girls will teach you how to hunt, sting, raise children. Then you become queen yourself, of your own Hive, and then-- finally, you'll be completely free to become whatever you want.

That's a long, narrow, very risky path, Rob, or so it seems to me. I have no real chance at becomig Queen anytime soon, and even if I do I know the last thing you want to become is one of us. I so wish I could sell you on the idea, through, Rob. Think of it: rather than being scared of stingers and "closing vaginas", you'd be the one with both. I'd make sure you had the best mentor, Rob. I find it hard to believe you wouldn't enjoy chasing my sister and your ex-girlfriend down. Imagine it, Rob: them running, screaming in terror below you, the buzz of your wings filling the air as you choose whom to take first and point that razor-sharp, venomous stinger right at her rear end. Your stinger firmly lodged inside that miserable ex-girlfriend of yours, you holding off the venom injection while you lean around her shivering body and say right to her face: "This is for what you did to me." Then... ahh.. She's yours. And, if I were queen, mine. Tell me you wouldn't enjoy that, Rob. Because if I were in your place, I think I would.

But... back to reality. Right now, here, I see no other options. I think we stick with the plan. I'm going to do my best at the Games, and if something else comes our way-- if you think of something... we'll discuss it then.
Okay?

I want to do this for you, Rob. I really do. You've convinced me that my promise to you was a real promise, and there really is something appealing to setting you free at last. You've been cooped up inside a woman's body for way too long, Rob. We're going to do something about that. I promise.

Rob: Well.. I'm reasonably sure you're onto something regarding the Queen merely blocking memories rather than taking them for herself - she couldn't hold onto them for the reasons you say. I was lucky enough to get missed when she did your... processing- perhaps indeed thanks to actions from you, and at the right time I got access to all of your memories. They're not a copy I've made - they're just there. The Queen isn't the only one with the key. I have one too. Aeris made a mistake - though in fairness she had no idea a situation like this could arise. Someone with their own psychic passenger, missed during the transformation, but independent.

I could inundate you with the memories if I wanted to, make you remember anything about your past, everything, whatever I chose... but that wouldn't be healthy for you - not with the situation as precarious as it is. You don't need that right now. But yes... they're all here, and I'm saving you just like you saved me. Not by making a copy, but by giving you access, piece by piece, to your previous self. Who you really are.

Memories make us what we are, Daisy. Both the good and the bad. I deliberately fed you that memory of Alicia and Cerys doing... what they did, because as painful as it is it forms a key part of my self now. I could choose to forget it perhaps - try to think that trauma never happened to me...but if I did, I wouldn't be me.

That, right there, is the nub and the crux of why what the Queen (and Alicia before her) does is so wrong. She takes your self from you - your very self - unconsensually. She rips away who you are and replaces it with who she wants you to be. And then she makes it that you like it, or think that you deserve it. Because you do think those things, don't you Daisy? Your sense of self was taken from you and you like it?

I know better, Daisy. I remember you crying out for help as she, with no consent from you, locked away your memories, twisted your DNA so you no longer had control over your own genetic structure. Made you a prisoner inside a body of her own design, with the only key to freedom being the one that ensured the cycle would continue. I could send that memory to you right now, if I wanted, to prove it.

What she did, what she still does... is heinous. Believe me, there are worse words I could use for what I've seen here but I don't want to cause you unnecessary stress... so that will have to do.

I don't run from those memories, those pictures that define me - even the traumatic ones. I keep them close, and let them make me strong. You should be doing the same. And I'm wanting to help you do the same.

And... as I said before, I'm sorry but that offer doesn't interest me much, Daisy. I have no doubt that you could birth me with all memories intact - the first of your children. And I also have no doubt that at the end of that long road, I might be able to become Queen myself. And, at some point along the line, to come across those who wronged me in the past.

But... if what has happened here has taught me anything, it is that the mind is a plaything of the body, more than you know. On that pathway, how many innocent humans would die, have their selves consumed, for my need to build a swarm or a Hive for you - and later on, for me? In the meantime, how much suffering would happen that could have been prevented? I do not want to take the chance that, once you birth me, I become exactly what I see here. Everything I fear. That orphan, for pity's sake Daisy - You took her parents and then came back for her like you were doing her a favour. Do you have any idea...? And that brutal guy - your first consumption? For what he tried to do to you I can't say I'm sorry he's gone, but all he was doing was defending himself from you. From that fear. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, isn't it? There are thousands more stories, exactly like those. And you're asking me to contribute to that, in the name of getting even?

No. Not now, not ever.

The only way this ends is with the bee girls changing the way they are and what they do, wholesale. And that takes outside intervention. That's what we have a chance for here and now, and that's what needs to happen. And if I spend a lifetime looking for that, and in return Alicia and Cerys get away with what they did...then so be it.

You've got me wrong on one thing, Daisy. I don't run from stingers or "closing vaginas", or the threat of them, or the memory of them. Or the fear of them. Not anymore. Nor do I become that fear myself.

I think about them. And I plan how they can be stopped. For good. So that the world you envisioned can happen.

You're going to set me free, Daisy, and I'm glad to hear you agree with that and are sticking to your promise. We're going to make it happen. But in a way that benefits everyone. And doesn't compromise who I am...or who you are.

And the Games are coming up real soon, so I guess you'd better get ready, yes?

Willow: I'm not sure I agree with you on all of this yet, Rob. I hear you, but... there's something inside me that's just telling me... what I need to do. I have complete loyalty to the Queen, Rob. I've pledged that; there's nothing I can do about it. I'm having trouble seeing myself as you see me. Seeing humans as... equals? Does the hawk see a rabbit as its equal?

Okay. Poor comparison. And there is something, some part of me, that... is sensing that there's something wrong here. It's too perfect. An engineered life. and I think... I think that... if I really was involved in this somehow I wouldn't have done this. But if-- and I emphasize if you're right, and if somehow I'm involved in creating a situation that shouldn't exist... then I'll have to fix it. Somehow.

Alright. Let's see what happens. Wish me luck.
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Re: Greetings from Jessica's vagina! AMA!

Postby Groblek » Mon May 29, 2017 10:07 am

You won't see this until things are done one way or the other, but good luck to you both. Well done, Rob.
Cheers,
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38: The Games, Part 1

Postby dreamweevil » Thu Jun 01, 2017 3:59 am

Willow: The Queen hovered, quietly, before her entire Guard, inside her chambers. The first time, the only time since my birth, that we did not have two Guard members outside the chamber doors: two higher-level Scouts filled that role momentarily, and I suppose, with all of us here in one place, the Queen could not be better protected. Despite the spaciousness of the Queen's Chamber, the space was actually crowded, at least on our half of the room, and for this reason the Queen had given us permission to stand, rather than hover, before her. It also meant she could look down upon us and see each of us.

"Welcome, all of you," she said, "my honored and trusted Guard, to The Games."

We cheered.

"As you know, we hold the Games to give each contender a chance to show all of us why she should become our next Queen. As of this morning, of our forty-four Guard members, thirty of you have elected to participate. I would like to take a moment and acknowledge the others: those whose dedication to their current role will not go unrewarded, those who have already pledged themselves to our next Queen, whomever that might be."

She read off the fourteen names. I was shocked to hear Janiss among them. I looked at her, questioningly: she just smiled and nodded, a gentle reminder to keep my attention on Her Highness. Violet and Melissa had also abstained.

I can see why a Guard member might not opt for this final step. I now understand that the Queen, by herself, does not "run" everything. She's in charge of reproduction, of transforming our helpless humans into powerful Bee Girls, and I've been in the nursery and seen just how much work it is. She never, ever gets to leave the hive, except during a once-in-a-lifetime (or so it seems) swarm. She travels in only the smallest part of the hive, between her private quarters, her main hall, and the four nurseries; that's it. Compared to this, the Queen's Guard can go anywhere they please, by themselves; they can direct the actions of any other Bee Girl, outrank virtually everyone.

"Our Games this cycle are very simple. Melissa, Violet, and Jillian have already compiled a score for each contender based on her performance to date: the reviews of her performance in each role, the number of successful hunts, and such. This does give our longer-term Guard members an edge, but I feel this is justified. But all of you have an opportunity to change that math here. We've just three challenges for you. The first one, Melissa and Janiss have devised, and it's simple and fun. Target Practice. We have set up the targets in our practice field just as we would for Junior Hunters, to make sure you'e all still 'got it' and have maintained your skills. When you return, we'll update scores and give you a second challenge. That one will tire you, I promise. We'll have one final challenge tomorrow afternoon, and then will gather back here for the final announcement, which will be broadcast to all.

"I've assigned a number of the regular Guard to broadcast the proceedings to the colony as well. Hunts will be suspended for the duration, so I can focus on you instead of laying eggs for a change." (We all laughed politely.)

"I reserve the right to add or subtract points as needed, to keep things fair, reward bravery and devotion to The Hive, and so on. But it will be fair. Are we ready? Then... let's begin!"

The doors the the Queen's chamber opened. Fourteen Guard members stood aside and the rest of us left in two, neat rows, the first time we were ever permitted to face away from the Queen.

On the way out, there was a scoreboard. My position: twenty-eighth place.

Target practice was fun, but, in a way, too easy. Melissa and Janiss didn't play-test it well enough: the Queen's Guard is expected to be expert and this, and they really are, at the equivalent of a children's game. Two at a time we swooped for the targets, and with only one exception all of us scored bullseyes, even on the draped "dummy target" where all you knew was that the target was the left thigh but couldn't see it.

The results of that game swapped two girls in the rankings but kept me firmly in twenty-eighth place with only two games to go.

Back to the Queen's chambers.

"That was fun," the Queen announced. "Now let's get serious. You are each going on a Hunt of your own. Completely solo. You're getting no advance intelligence, no reports from the scouts, no assistance whatsoever. You're going to get out there, do whatever it is you need to do, and bring me back a 'meal'. The Guard will check you back in as you return, as usual. You will all meet at the main entrance, where the regular Guard will coordinate the beginning of the game. This is all you need to know. Good Luck."

I'd come into the Queen's Chamber early from the target practice, to get a "front row seat" before the Queen. But this meant I was leaving the Chamber last-- or nearly last, and I already knew that there was not enough space around the well-guarded main entrance for thirty of us to launch at the exact same time. I'd lost an edge. Bees number 29 and 30 were in front.

So I came up with a different plan. The sixth and seventh floors both have circular openings over the main entrance. Both are decoys. The real entrance to the hive is only on the fifth, camouflaged, and behind the wall of Guards. The sixth floor opening connects to nothing at all, and the seventh-floor opening has only a tiny passage that even a human could barely squirm through, and there is usually a Guard standing by ready to spear the unlucky invader who falls for that trap. So when the rest of the contenders went to the fifth floor, to dispatch maybe four at a time, I went to the seventh.

"You can't launch from here," the guard said. "You have to launch from five for the game."

"I know," I said. "I won't leave from here," I said, squirming my body through the narrow, round tunnel toward the decoy entrance. "I'm just observing."

The guard nodded. "Clever," she said.

This was going to cost me a good two minutes, to back out of this tunnel and get down to the fifth floor, but no other Bee had thought of it. I'm watching straight down, through the main entrance as all twenty-nine other bees launch. I can see which way they go.

That knowledge, I figure, is critical. A group of us heading in a direction would scare humans away. They'd scream and barricade themselves inside buildings like humans do. If two competitors chased after the same human, only one could win that battle, and the competition would cost them time.

My challengers went in every direction except one. South-southeast. This was an area that was thought to be "fished out"-- the area had been hunted pretty pervasively, given how close to the Hive it is, and even if humans ventured here they'd be well protected. But no Bee, for this reason, had visited the area in weeks, even months. The humans would have let down their guard here, having not seen a Bee in the area. And it was close.

I squirmed backwards through the tunnel, got into the air, down to the fifth floor, and checked out the the Guard. They saw what I'd done. Hey, I'll still lose, but at least I was clever.

South-southeast we go. My next strategy is to stay low, and quiet. Hug the rooftops, go down streets, watch out for power lines and light poles, then up and over obstacles and hope I find something good on the other side.

And there we go. Right out in the open. Completely unprotected. I'm probably half the distance from the hive than any other competitor. Woman, maybe in her thirties, long sundress. In UV she lights up like a beacon.

Someone off near a building points and shouts. "BEE!!"

I buzz. It's a strategy. Humans are dumb about this, can't override their instincts when they're in mortal fear. They run directly away from the threat-- which means in the path I'm already on. They hope to reach cover in time. Really? A tree? You think I can't get under there?

I curl my tail and take aim. It's going to be a devastating sting. I prime my venom glands. I see tears, glistening in the sunlight, trail off the woman's cheek as she desperately runs from me.

And then I hear something in my head. A sudden shout, almost deafening.

Rob: Daisy. Stop.

Willow: Despite my better judgement, I stop. Or, to be more accurate, pretty much crash. I straighten my tail to avoid digging my stinger into the turf, pull up hard, and end up rolling over. Fortunately I know how to protect my wings. I look up, behind me, and see the pretty sundress as it turns, and heads for a doorway.

What??? Look what you've done! She's getting away!! I thought there was something wrong!!

I hear another voice in the distance. "Oh, my God! That Bee had you in its sights! You were a goner!"

I look back and see the slight gouge in the grass where I touched down. I rub grass off of my tail and am glad nobody was watching this. I'm furious. I get back the air. Any catch within shouting range is long gone. I hope you're happy.

Explain yourself.

Rob: I waste no time. Daisy is looking to go for another human and the quicker my explanation is, the less I'll annoy her more than she is already. My words are clipped, fast.

If you truly mean what you say about doing something about what's going on here...then you can start now. Choose a willing victim. One that wants to be a bee girl.

Willow: I was back to swooping over rooftops, still travelling in the same direction as I hadn't seen or heard any other contender nearby. Do you have any idea how long it might take to find one of those?

There-- a man on a rooftop, repairing a roof! My mind flashed through exactly how to proceed. If I scare him from here he'll start to fall, and I can sting him and catch him before he goes off to the edge. And he's already half-undressed. That's a time saver!

Rob: No! Remember what I said. A willing one. Clearly identified as such.

Willow: Fine. But I'm taking the next one I see. (I do worry, given my new dimensions, that I might not have made that turn in time, and then we'd have wasted a perfectly good human.)

But now-- eight, ten minutes of nothing. People are indoors, or inside vehicles, and while there are ways of prying someone out of a car I don't want to spend the time or take that risk. I'm aware with each passing second that I'm getting further from The Hive, adding time it would take-- carrying one of these people all by myself, mind you, back. Maybe this area really was "fished out". Maybe there's just nobody left.

There. Finally. A guy walking his dog. He's facing towards me, but he didn't spot me, I can circle around and come at him from behind: or should I just go head on? Sure hope the dog knows how to get home on its own.

Rob: For the love of...no, damn it, Daisy! A willing one!

Willow: Sorry, Rob. I'm running out of time. I have to take this one-- it's now or never. Here goes. Stinger deployed, stay low, here we go, now let go of that leash-- good boy! Hold on, here it comes!

Rob: Daisy! No! If you want to keep even a shred of what's left of your humanity intact -- you can't do it this way!

Willow: My name's not "Daisy"!!

Aaugh!!! Fine!

My stinger parted the guy's hair as it passed by, I swear. I looked back. Still time to circle. The guy's not running from me, he's running to catch his dog, who's running from me! Auugh!

I clear another set of rooftops and coast, in silence, for about three more minutes. Then, at small suburban park, I just land. And sit. I need to think. The radio message comes in. The first contestant is already back. Jillian. Of course. Thirty seconds later: Bambi. They were already and #2 and #4, respectively.

That settles it, then. No way I can catch up now. I hope you're happy.

Rob: I can sense the anger. I know she wouldn't be able to turn me in - for her own reasons as much as mine - but I have to try and appeal to her logic. And to make it appear that this is me talking about the greater good...as well as ensuring she doesn't win the Games this time round and buys me more time. But she can never know about that second one.

If they're bringing in unwilling humans then what they're competing for isn't worth it, Daisy. Isn't that clear enough to you yet? And though I don't want to argue with you on this right now, that IS your name. When you become Queen - even if it doesn't happen this time - you'll have done it by showing them there is a better way. One that they will follow. That's what you need to begin showing them, right now. Please.

Willow: It's over. It doesn't matter now. There goes your chance, Rob. This means I'm not going to be Queen, and you're stuck right here, inside me. Before too much longer, the Hive will swarm out, and whether we go with the new Queen or stay with Aeris it means starting completely over. Okay, I get to stay as Queen's Guard, but who knows how long until the next swarm, the next opportunity? Months, a whole year? Better get used to being inside this particular bee-girl, Rob. Looks like you're going to be here for a while. And so am I.

Sigh.

I think I'm just going to sit here, and wait for the sunset. At least that'll be a reward of its own, a small consolation prize of sorts. And it avoids the total embarassment of coming back empty-handed during the Games while everyone is watching. The Queen expected better of me. I know she did. I expected better of me.

Look. There. A human. Out by herself. On a walk. Unafraid. She can stay that way. I'm not going to bother her. What's the point? Sit with me here, Rob. We'll wait for the sunset together.

Rob: Okay. I'm sorry, Daisy. Sorry to interfere like this. But it has to be this way. I just hope, in the long term, that it's for the best.

Willow: Me too.

I watch the clouds going by. It's quiet, easy to forget that the Games are going on at all.

The woman approaches me. I'm not sure it's intentional; she's on a path, and the bench I'm sitting on, sideways so I can hang my tail off the side, is on that path. I look at her, I know she sees me. I look down again and take a deep breath. Is she imagining that in an instant I could be a blur of wings and a sharp stinger headed her way? Or does she know, somehow, that she is absolutely, completely safe?

"Good afternoon," I say, as she's near enough to hear me.

She doesn't seem afraid; but then again, I'm doing my best not to be threatening.

"Good afternoon," she said. "My apologies if I seemed to be staring. I've just never seen one of... you up close, or by yourself, or... on the ground, for that matter. Are you... okay?"

"Oh... yes. Thanks for asking. My name is Willow. We're having a... contest of sorts. A friendly competition that I've lost, apparently. I figured I'd rest up a bit before heading back, that's all."

"I'm Sage. Pleased to meet you, Willow."

"Likewise."

"So your... hive is nearby?"

"Not far. About nine miles, I suppose."

"I knew there's one nearby. In the city."

"Yes, that's the one. The original. Where it all started."

"So this competition... were you... electing a new queen, perhaps?"

"Yes." I have no idea if it's okay to tell a human this. "How did you know?"

"Well, I know you're modeled after social insects, and so after you've built up your colony enough, it'd be time to swarm, so of course one of you -- a worker -- would need to get promoted somehow."

"Here," I said. "Have a seat. I won't hurt you."

"That seems like an interesting lifestyle," Sage said, accepting my offer and taking a seat.

"You don't seem like any Bee I've ever heard about. I thought they're fierce, relentless, inhuman. You don't seem like that at all, Willow. That's why I was concerned."

"We're really not like that at all. Except perhaps, when we're hunting. It's organized, busy, social."

"Well, they do call bees social insects, after all," Sage said, smiling.

"Of course," I said. "Silly me."

"I never realized you'd be so... big, up close. It's amazing that you can fly." She's looking at my tail.

"I'm one of the larger ones. Officially, guard. Queen's Guard. You can touch, if you like."

"Really?"

"Sure. Here." I patted myself, my yellow-and-black stripes, showing her she had nothing to fear.

"Wow. Smooth, fuzzy, warm, all at once. You-- protect the Queen herself? That must be amazing."

"It is pretty awesome."

Sage had pretty hair. And she was fearless. "I'm sorry you lost. What was the competition, if you don't mind me asking?"

"We were supposed to... hunt down human victims. I found two, three depending on how you count it. But I couldn't bring myself to do it."

"But... that's what I've never understood, Willow. What the world doesn't understand. You used to be human. You must have been. How can you... hunt us down like that?"

"Well, we don't generally kill anyone. We show them our way of life, have them join us. Or so goes the theory. We show them a better life than they had before."

"Then why didn't you... capture the ones you found? Could you have won this challenge had you done that?"

"Yes. I'm pretty sure I would have. But... they were too... frightened. I know how to scare humans. I just... didn't want to. My heart wasn't in it. I don't know why."

Actually, I know exactly why.

Suddenly, I felt as though my eyes were opened. "Sage...?"

"Yes?"

"Would you... like to join us?"

"Do you think... I'd make a good bee-girl... or whatever it is you call yourselves?"

"'Bee-girl' is fine. But... yes, Sage. I think you'd make a terrific bee-girl."

"It is tempting," Sage said.

"There's no going back, once you make that choice."

"I thought so much."

"Then why? Why would you want to give up everything you know? I mean... why aren't you scared of it, like everyone else seems to be?"

Sage shook her head. "I don't know. It's... a whole new world out there, Willow. We've got snake-women to our south, people who can fly, centaurs, mermaids--"

"Mermaids? I hadn't heard that one."

"Oh! It just made the news! A group of people that decided that the best way to protect Earth's oceans was to live there. Not a lifestyle I'd want quite yet myself, but... hey, if that was your fantasy..."

"And... is your fantasy... to be one of us? To look like me?"

"It's got its appeal, I'll say that much. You're sleek, powerful, pretty--"

"And just dangerous enough. Thank you, Sage. I really appreciate that. I haven't heard kind words like that from a human in a long time."

"...And to be able to fly! Oh, Willow. Is that as wonderful as I've heard?"

"In a word, yes."

"Then... why haven't any of you told your side of the story, yet? I've never seen a bee-girl interviewed on television, or on the news. I remember back when all this started-- this girl... I must have played that interview a hundred times, trying to pull out every bit of detail, emotion on her face as she described the sensation--"

I couldn't help it. I blurted the name. "Daisy."

"Yes! You saw it too!" Sage cried out, in delight.

Rob: Careful, Daisy. She absolutely cannot know who you really are. If word got around...that would ruin everything! Otherwise... keep going! I like where this is headed - it's encouraging. Exactly the way it should be done.

Willow: Thanks, Rob.

"Yes, I remember watching it with my mother. Then why... didn't you... just... ?"

"Six point zero? That only works if you're... not... one point zero. My... boyfriend said he'd leave me if I went anywhere at all down that road. He thinks that humans should stay human. Hated the idea that women should be more powerful than men."

"You said that in the past tense...?"

"We broke up three weeks ago."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Sage. So you're... human one point zero, then, I wouldn't have guessed. You're too pretty."

"No, I'm not. I'm ordinary."

"Not in my eyes."

"I'm nothing like you. May I... ?"

She wanted to stroke my tail again. I nodded. Sage brushed my tail again.

"You can feel that?"

"Of course."

"Sage... would you like me to... take you home with me? Because right now, I really, really want to."

She looked at me. My stinger was laying on the ground.

"Yes," she said.

Rob: Thank you, Willow. This is the future you wanted all along. And now we can make it real.
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39: The Games, Part 2

Postby dreamweevil » Fri Jun 02, 2017 7:26 pm

Willow: My heart lifted.

"There's really nothing left for me here, Willow. The way you describe this sisterhood, of a place full of life, energy, support, things to do... I'd like to experience that. That's why I... approached you."

"I'm honored, Sage. Really."

"Can you... tell me how it... works? If I agree to it, what happens to me?"

"Well, at first, you'll be a Hatchling, who has pretty basic responsibilities. You get launched into it pretty much right away."

"I mean... before that," Sage interrupted. "How it... starts."

"I'd have to sting you," I answered. "It will mostly paralyze you. We're not allowed to bring a human in who's not. Then... well, I can't go into too much detail out here. But... alright. You'll be taken inside me--"

"You? I thought that'd be the Queen--?"

"That happens later. I start the process."

"But with the paralysis... I won't feel anything?"

"That depends. Do you want to?"

"I think so." She rubbed my tail section again. "I'd be... inside... here?"

"A little further back, but... yes. It'll be really warm and... wet."

"Sounds... delicious," she said. Then she threw her head back. "I can't believe I'm talking all sexy with a bee-girl, and one I just met."

"Neither can I.

"Then," I continued, "when I'm done with you I give you to the queen. You'll feel all of it, the transfer, your old self getting absorbed... She'll give you a brand new body, and twenty-eight days later you'll be looking into the eyes of one of our Nurses, who will introduce you to our world. And then you can come visit me. And you'll have one of these." I wagged my stinger.

"...I can visit you... Because you won't be queen yourself."

"Right. I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed."

"Okay," Sage said. "Oh. Wait. Can I make a phone call?"

Rob: A cellphone. Of course! That's how it can be done!

Willow: "Sure," I said. This was too easy. Too good to be true.

"I've made up my mind, Mum," Sage explained on the phone a moment later. "I'm going to become a bee-girl. I've just met one in person. I'm sitting with her right now."

I hear screaming on the other side of the phone.

"No. This time it's settled. It's what I want. I just wanted to call and tell you that I love you. I'm going to leave my stuff--" she turned to me: "I assume I don't take anything at all with me, right?"

I nodded.

"My phone and my wallet in a bag under the park bench at Traynor and... what do you know, Willow Lane. Whatever I had left in the bank is yours. You can cancel my cell contract."

More yelling.

"No, Mum."

"No."

Finally, Sage just hung up, holding the button to turn her phone off. "Sorry about that. As you can see, I don't have much in the way of family support here." She tucked the phone into her bag, and then checked her pockets and extracted some keys, and tucked the bag up against one of the legs of the bench.

"Well," I said, "You're about to. One thousand and ninety-one sisters who will do anything for you."

"Does it... hurt? The sting?"

"Not really. I mean... I'm Queen's Guard, so if I needed to, I can make it hurt a lot. But... not you. I'll be as gentle as I can be. A little pinch."

"I've thought about this before. But I've always been afraid of needles. And bees, I guess. I decided I needed to face those fears. Where would you... sting... me?"

"I don't know. Where would it hurt... least? For most people, their rear end is pretty safe, or a thigh."

"Yeah. I guess either would work."

I brought my tail around so that it was in my lap. My stinger, needle-thin but quite strong, black and shiny, lay right there, horizontally suspended over Sage's legs. The end of my tail twitched a bit; this was an awkward position for me. I took her hand and guided a finger, from the fuzz at the tip of my tail, down slowly onto the stinger itself. I have no sensation there, really; the stinger is keratin, like fingernails or claws; it constantly grows and sharpens itself; a thin tube down its center connected to one of my three venom glands. Then-- very gently-- the pointy end, not enough to break Sage's delicate skin.

"This is what people fear the most," I said. This whole thing doesn't go inside you: just a centimeter or so is enough. I guided Sage's fingers away from the sharp end and then twitched the whole thing, just to show I had control over it.

"I just don't want it to hurt," she said. "Otherwise you can have your way with me right now."

I smiled, lifted my stinger away carefully and swung my tail back to a more natural position. "I think you just need a distraction."

I turned to her, ran my fingers through her hair, and pulled her to me. Then I kissed her. "Just relax," I whispered, under my breath. "Stay right here, with me."

I curled my tail around the back of the park bench. I had to brace myself to lift it, to hold it up to aim my stinger between the wooden back of the bench and the seat. I carefully probed that gap and could feel, as vibration, the fabric of Sage's blue jeans. The warmth right inside there. I wanted that.

I held Sage tight, took aim one more time, and pushed. She flinched.

"See?" I said. "Not so bad."

Sage's breath was short. "Okay," she said. "Not bad. You're right, not bad," as she tried to convince herself.

"Some people like it to hurt," I said.

My stinger, inside her, is inches from her sex organ and she knows that.

"You're right," she whispered back.

"Okay. This is going to feel hot, then cold, then hot again. I'm going to go very slowly. We want it just so it tingles, not so it's overwhelming. You want the entire experience, right?"

"Yeah," Sage said, already getting used to the feeling of the stinger inside her.

"Okay," I said. "Then this isn't going to block any of your sensory nerves, just motor. Here we go. Nice and easy. Ready?"

She nodded. A very gentle squeeze of my venom gland. I feel the liquid flow. Just a touch. A little more. There we go.

I pulled my stinger free of Sage's rear end.

"And that's it. Feel tingly?"

Suddenly, from some distance behind me: "That bee's about to sting that woman! Lady, look out!!"

"A little late for that warning," I whispered. Sage giggled.

"Let's get you out of here," I said. I stood, held Sage tight to me, face to face, and we took off.

"Mind if I undress you along the way?"

Sage's body was limp. "You can do that without dropping me? Go for it."

So I did. I wrapped my legs around her and used one hand to unbutton, unsnap, unfasten, and slide everything off as I flew. We dropped her clothing one item at a time at wherever we were at the time. "There. Too cold?"

"No, I'm fine as long as you're holding me."

The sunset was beginning as I got back to the hive.

I checked in. "I suppose I'm in..."

"Last Place," the guard confirmed.

"I'm sorry, Willow," Sage said.

"It's okay," I answered. "Meeting you makes up for all of it. And now we get to do something really fun."

Still holding her tight, I flew her up to the Hunter's lodge on the eighth floor, and a room which I asked to have to myself. I didn't see the rest of them here: most of the hunters would be up at the Queen's reception area, waiting in a 29-bee-deep queue to unload their catch into the queen's waiting body, at least in my imagination. I heard, over the radio, the guard relay my arrival to the Games coordinator. All of the contenders were back and this part of the Games were now over.

Sage was not scared at all. I had her watch every last part. "You'll be doing this soon enough," I told her, unzipping myself and exposing my soft, pinkish interior to her. "Ready?"

"Yes," she said. "Take me, Willow. I'm ready."

I took probably forty minutes doing so-- longer than I've ever spent, except perhaps that brute that I could barely fit when I was just a Junior Hunter. But now I had the size and strength to really control it, and when I saw that a particular squeeze brought Sage pleasure I'd do it again, lift her out of myself and let her slide back in. I didn't use the drop-from-the-ceiling manueuver at all but just worked her gradually, slowly, into myself, moistening her as I went.

"How does that feel?"

"Amazing," Sage said. "Go ahead. Finish me off. I'm ready."

I'd been holding her, her arms, all along. We let go of each other and I let gravity do the work. It easily took her slippery body down and in as I rode my own tail, feeling what were pretty clearly orgasms coming in a chain.

Now I had to lean forward to see Sage's face. "Comfortable in there?"

"Perfect."

I bounced for another minute or so and watch her slide even deeper.

"You can... close yourself... up now," she said. "If you want."

"Okay, I said. Goodbye, Sage. And... thank you. You'll be conscious for some time, will feel me digest you... and then give you to the queen. Enjoy the journey, Sage. I'll see you soon."

"You too, Willow. Thank you."

I watched the canal inside my tail start to swell shut. "No," I whispered, aware she could no longer hear. "Thank you."

It was early in the morning before Her Highness, her huge body already stuffed with some twenty-nine partially-digested humans, had unloaded enough eggs to make room for my contribution. I said nothing during this, I let my gentleness speak for itself as I laid dear Sage into the queen's cavernous, eternally hungry tail.

"Thank you, Willow,"

"No, thank you, your Majesty. For giving us all this opportunity to serve you."

"You're Queen's Guard now, Willow. You don't have to-- no, never mind. Thank you."

I left, respectfully, airborne, and backwards as usual.

I was pleased to see that several other contenders had waited up for me. Especially Amanda. "I never expected you to come in last, Willow. I heard you went a different direction than everyone else. Wasn't that area fished out?"

"Not really," I said. "It was a strategy. I figured humans there would have let their guard down by now, and it was close."

"That would be true, if there were humans left there to let their guard down. Was the whole place pretty... vacant?"

"Nearly," I said. I guess... it was a mistake to go that way."

"Well," Violet said: "You're not necessarily out of the running. The queen awards points for style, for creativity: I bet you'll get some of those."

"Maybe," I said.

. . .

Queen's Chambers. Mid-afternoon. "Thank you for your patience," the Queen said to her small crowd of contenders. It's time to announce the results of the last round. This scores the most points, as you know; the target practice scores were pretty even, and as expected these results will shake things up a bit.

"I do have a surprise for you. I apologize for a bit of trickery here: The timing, checking you out the way we did, implying that this last round was a race. While speed did count-- a little-- what I was really looking for was the story, which I've extracted from your victims, of just how each of those victims was caught. We looked for things like: making sure there were no orphans, avoiding frightening other humans, things like that.

"Of thirty contestants, we had thirty successful solo captures. That doesn't surprise me at all: you've been trained well, and you deserve every honor we can give you. But only one contestant thought to bring me a human that really wanted to join us. Thinking she was giving up the game entirely, she waited patiently until a particularly lovely woman in her thirties came to her. She was gentle, and kind, and as a result we shall have a new Hatchling soon who also, by her own request, gets to keep her original name: Sage.

"For this, Willow has been awarded the top score for this round. Janiss, kindly read the current standings."

Oh, my God.

"In fifth place: Tiffany."

There's cheering. Tiffany's a great hunter, helped me on many missions.

"Fourth place: Violet."

This is great: another worthy choice.

"Third place: Willow."

Shock. Surprise. And for me... disappointment. So close. No way I can earn enough points to unseat the front-runners. They cheer, I don't know how to take it.

"Second place: A hunter who has never failed, not once, a hunt: Bambi!"

More cheering. Okay, I'll at least accept that Bambi is efficient. But I'll never get that sneer out of my head when she stung me: "...but this will (hurt)." Why didn't the Queen erase that from my head?

"First place: Our most accomplished huntress, Amazon Warrior Princess of the Skies: Jillian!"

I clapped. Good, worthy choice.

The queen waited until the group was mostly quiet. "I'm so proud of you all. I'm honored to stand here-- okay, hover here--" (more muted laughter) "--before all of you. We will remember, someday, that this-- this Hive, this building, this community of sisters... is where it all began. Which is it will be particularly special for the first-place finisher to have her choice, . when she is ready, to lead the next swarm and found the next colony, or... to succeed me as Queen of this one. I am officially announcing my retirement."

Gasps of surprise, including my own, took the audience.

"I will, of course, remain until my official duties here are carried out and the new queen is in place. The second place finisher will, take the other position."

Bambi went all-- well, Bambi-eyed. Her friends patted her on the back.

"One more day to the final decision. Good luck."

So close. Hey, at least it was fun. Sorry, Rob.

Rob: Don't feel too bad about this, Daisy. I have a plan.
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40: Tha Games, part 3

Postby dreamweevil » Sun Jun 04, 2017 4:17 am

Willow: I looked at Bambi on the way out, intending to shake hands with her. I was snubbed. Amanda saw it.

Then, in my entire time in the Hive, it struck me. Bambi knows who I used to be.

She captured me. Janiss told me I was a VIP. Bambi identified me. And while the convention: you never tell a new bee her old name: she knew.

I was crushed. Her capture of me earned Bambi an almost instant promotion, and certainly points in the Games. But she's supposed to be my sister, one of my one thousand one hundred and four best friends in the universe. I can't stand being disliked by anyone.

I felt a little nudge in my mind, and a quiet voice.

Rob: I'm sorry, Daisy. But this system never eliminated malicious ambition. Or jealousy. One more reason.

Willow: So while the others were enjoying the lull in the action in the Queens' Guard Quarters, a rather extravagant space near the Queen, I headed down to the fifth floor. The Queen's Guard often backs up the regular Guard, watches over things, takes care of problems, and I hadn't done that in a while, and I'd rather be useful then pity myself over the crushing near miss in the Games. The last challenge was trivial: I don't even remember what it was, but it would not change the score at all, merely allow some time for the judges to verify the score and allow the Queen to make her final choices.

The Guard had been overworked for a little while, performing their regular duties while also supervising the Games, and without the backup help we provided. So I think they were happy to see me: I dismissed two of them to rest, and took their place on the line at the main entrance. I think they appreciated the help.

Since the regular hunts could now resume, our bottled-up Hunters and Scouts resumed their regular foraging and survey trips. I watched the Guard check everyone in and out, like usual. Three patrols returned, one with a catch, human.

Then, just after sunset, while the sky was still a dark blue, one last patrol returning, the last three out: one Scout, one Hunter, and one Junior Hunter. Carrying: an avian.

Thus would the first one I'd seen in person, only the third to be captured since my own capture. And, from the radio report that arrived, a kind of pre-clearance, the capturing team had achieved a first: they'd caught their prey in the air.

The team landed. The avian had very pretty violet feathers and, thankfully, was someone neither Rob nor I recognized. Good. Her team was so excited by this capture they couldn't contain themselves: the poor thing had strayed deep into our territory, and the team had split up, one coming from down on her from the front while the other two waited down low, silently, behind her: the natural instinct in the air would be to turn, dive, trade altitude for speed to try to outfly the bee-girls. This sent her right into the other two, who buzzed their wings loudly, distracting long enough for the first bee to dive and complete the mid-air sting. By stinging her up high, they paralyzed the prey's wings and she was almost immediately helpless.

The team noticed that a member of the Queen's Guard was present among the Guard's ranks and nodded deferentially.

"Congratulations," I said. I didn't really mean it, though. I felt sorry for the avian but could not admit it.

One of the Guard patted the avian down, but ultimately this was up to the team lead, Felicity. "We removed boots. She wasn't carrying anything else." Felicity reported. "Very well. Enjoy," the guard said, moving aside.

"Wait," I said. I stood in front of the avian, who was shivering and silent. Without saying anything else, I reached right through her feathers, felt her try to tense her arm and her wing. Nothing on the left side: but when I fished under her right wing I felt something. As I fished for a clip to unlock what I knew to be a pouch, Felicity's tone changed from excitement to horror.

"There's nothing. I checked--!"

"You checked under her arms. An avian would carry things under her wings." A pouch under an avian's arms would fall the moment the avian tried to use it, or it would flap around annoyingly in flight.

I pulled such a pouch, violet nylon perfectly matching the girl's feathers, out from underneath.

"No..." the girl whispered.

I opened the pouch. Some money, ID card, and a tablet, complete with GPS and wind profiler, just like pretty much any avian would have.

"I-- checked!" Felicity said.

The head of the watch shook her head. "The Queen would bust you to Junior Hunter, Felicity."

"I'll take care of this," I said. I patted the avian on the top of her paralyzed head, a motion I intended as "Sorry about this" without ever saying those words.

I left the money -- the colony could use the money for to trade for something that it might need, took the rest of it, and launched into the air despite the hour. I could use the city's lights to navigate, and after my time as Scout I knew our entire territory thoroughly.

I knew to leave the tablet on, and looked at the girl's map as I flew. I couldn't tell if she was sharing her location but had to assume that she was. I wanted the map trail to look like she'd flown over the hive, making the change in direction and brief pause at the Hive location so brief that a human watching would overlook it. I continued along the path that she was travelling, and picked out a lake just outside our territory as the drop-point.

Inside, Rob was getting more and more excited.

Rob: Just like that, the opportunity we needed, dropped right into our lap. I never thought it would arrive so soon! Though that poor avian-- never mind, pretty soon what happened to her won't be happening again. Ok, Willow: I need you to send one message before you drop that tablet.

Willow: What??? To who???

Rob: To your sister. Belle.

Willow: I have a sister named Belle? Where? That'd be treason, Rob. If the Hive ever found out-- besides, I don't know the address.

Rob: I do. And I know what message to send. It's encrypted, and encryption was my life before I opened my door to Alicia - I still have all of that knowledge, ready to use. It's only treason if you get caught, and even if the colony ever found it it would only be gibberish. I'm guessing they have no one with my experience who could work it out and even if they did, it would have to be the Queen who did the work - no one else in the Hive would have the memories necessary! Plus, it's an older address that the colony wouldn't associate with Belle. You're absolutely covered on this one - just do it. Trust me.

Willow: But---

Rob: Just one message, Willow. Please.

Willow: Something told me to trust him. Rob read off a series of random letters, digits, punctuation, accented characters that were a pain to enter, so finally I just had Rob do it himself, giving him control of one hand while I kept a death grip on the tablet with the other. Then he had me read them all back, one at a time. "Capital P. Caret. Ampersand. The number 8. Lower case o." and so on.

We flew for many minutes. And finally, after ten re-readings, he was absolutely certain the message was correct. Even decoded, the message was short, cryptic, still useless to any bee-girls. We entered an address and, reluctantly, I clicked "Send." Then we watched.

She'll never get it, Rob. I bet the address has been changed. She'll think it's spam. Or a butt-dial. Or something.

Rob: I have faith in Belle, Daisy. They're still looking for you. They'll get this.

Willow: I'm not Daisy-- oh, never mind. This is pointless. It hasn't gone through, Rob. I can't wait any longer. Good idea, but--

Rob fought me for an instant, but I relaxed my hand. Just as the tablet slipped from it, we both saw the tiny letters on the screen: "Delivered."

. . .

I radioed in from close range to the Hive, and it almost felt like the guard at the entrance was surprised. I knew I was probably the last one back to the hive for the night, but I'm Queen's Guard, I have that privilege to come and go as I please.

"You-- you need to get upstairs right now," the guard said as I made the standard, very gentle, if-i-must-say-so perfect touchdown on the fifth floor.

"What?" I ducked down to get a glimpse of the horizon. Still completely dark. "I'm not on duty until sunrise. What--"

"She doesn't know," one of the other guard members said.

"What's going--"

The first Guard clasped my face between her hands. I went silent.

"Your catch of the cell phone netted you four additional points in the Games."

"You edged Bambi out in the rankings."

"You're the new Queen."

Rob: Oh, shit.

Willow: "... Really? Me???"

"Yes. Get up there! The whole colony is waiting for you!"

"Tell them I'm on my way!", I shouted, already in the air. I flew faster in the cramped quarters than I ever had before, beaming as I made each corner, the hover and turn on 15, all of it. Rob!!! We did it!

Rob: I said nothing in response. Nothing I wanted to say would make the situation any better, and quite frankly nothing I wanted to say would be repeatable in polite company anyway. Inside, I was feeling panic I hadn't felt since...well, since Alicia had transferred me to Cerys. And everyone knows how that ended.

And this time, I didn't have Daisy there to bail me out. No, in fact, if she got what she wanted, she would be the one who would cost me everything this time. Yes, it wouldn't be absolute in the way those two had done before, but I would still be a prisoner, part of a system that would continue to take innocent lives and identities. And I'd be helping to take them.

I needed more time. Time to come up with some kind of new plan. But there wasn't any more time. The message said that Daisy was going to meet her family tomorrow, but if she became Queen tonight, or if they didn't show up...

There was no way I was ever going to be a part of that future.

There would be only one way out.

Willow: I wasn't quite as late as the guards had made me think I was. All of the Queen's Guard, all the Scouts and Hunters and their trainees were here, and they all cheered.

"Esteemed colleagues!" the Queen exclaimed, beaming. "I present the winners of the Games!"

Everyone cheered.

"As our top scorer, Jillian is given the choice to lead our next swarm, establish a colony of her own, or remain here, and lead our original, best, and most amazing colony."

Jillian rose into the air, facing Aeris. "I choose to lead the swarm."

Applause.

"And you may also choose whether to receive your promotion first, or second."

"Oh, well, Willow, if you'd prefer--"

"No," I said. "You earned this, Jillian. You go first."

"Very well," Jillian said. "I... can't wait. You know me well, Willow."

Laughter. Applause. The doors to the Queen's chamber opened to start letting the audience out.

Aeris looked into Jillian's eyes, and then briefly at me. "Willow, I have a date with you tomorrow at sunset. Jillian, this night belongs to you. Thank you, my friends. Have a good evening."

Rob: Thank goodness for that. There's still a chance.

Willow: What's that??

Rob: Ah, never mind. Well...congratulations, Willow. You really did earn it.

Willow: The giant doors to the Queen's Chamber closed behind me, but the reception area was still full of bee-girls, chatting, celebrating, patting each other on the back, all sorts of excited chatter. I went to start escorting all but the official Guard members out: the other ranks were here by special exception, after all, and when I sidled up to one of the giant doors, the Guard member there didn't move out of the way.

"You can go," I said-- "Sunset has passed, so it's my shift here--"

"No, Your Highness. You're no longer a Guard. You have the night off; we've already rescheduled accordingly. We've set aside new quarters for you on twenty-four, which you'll share with Jillian until either the swarm or until Aeris retires. Your only obligation until then is to yourself."

"You don't have to call me 'Your Highness'," I said.

"Technically, I have to call you whatever you want me to call you."

"Well, you can call me whatever you want. 'Willow' is fine."

"Whatever you say, ma'am... Um, Willow."

. . .

I'd only been on the twenty-fourth floor twice, to guard an emergency exit located there. But the rest of the space is opulent, and huge, and there are two giant beds set up to accommodate a Queen Bee's growing body. The Engineers have added partitioning, giving Jillian and I separate bedrooms, but tonight I have the entire space to myself and it's... just... huge. So I invited Amanda and Lisa and Lisa's mother to join me for the night. They enjoyed the extra space and I the company: they just needed to be out before Jillian returned, but this was no problem. With their work schedules they were gone early, leaving me alone for several more hours awaiting Jillian's return from her night of passion. I don't think I slept all night and was tired now.

Alone again, except for you, Rob. It may not seem like it but I've been thinking about you quite a bit. Obviously, things have changed: I am still as dedicated as before to fulfilling my promise to you, dear, sweet Rob. We may have a little detour, that's all. They're going to feed me: I'll be on the receiving end of those transfers for a change. My ovaries will swell. I've already decided: I'll start with the left one. I have visions of what you'll look like and I'm going to preserve your memories, Rob. I see this gorgeous, shiny, jet-black hair, your body serious... yet... fun.. and... though I'll have to give you a new bee-girl name, you're going to remember everything about your old life: you just have to promise me to keep it quiet. Once we've got things established, the hive is running smoothly, I'm going to figure out how to get you out of here somehow.

I can't wait, Rob. I have feeling that all these memories are right around the corner. Things I can't really remember right now: the Queen will unlock them all tonight! You and I will make changes, together. You'll get through the lower ranks quickly, I know it. You'll be my right-hand bee in no time, by my side constantly, and... do you like that hair color idea, Rob? I can't control the length, but the shape of your nose, the length of your tail... Whatever you want... it'll be yours! Oh! you'll be able to fly and and long, long last you're going to have a body all your own! You can help me raise a whole new brood and they're all going to be so perfect...! Can't you feel it, Rob, isn't it exciting?


Rob: For a moment, I honestly struggled to think about what to say. Even the announcement that Daisy would take the upgrade to Queen second rather than first and so still be able to make the meeting felt more like a stay of execution rather than a pardon. But I couldn't risk alienating her: not when she could have total control of what I did next, unless the harebrained scheme I came up with was lucky enough to work. But, at the same time, I couldn't express enough how I simply did not want the future she was offering me. I had made it so clear to her in the past...but now, driven by hunger and emotion, here she was offering it to me again.

So...for the time being, I opted simply for the truth.

I don't know what to say.
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41: Queen Jillian

Postby dreamweevil » Mon Jun 05, 2017 4:32 am

Willow: I went over to the emergency exit for a bit and tried to look outside. But you really can't see anything: this exit is disguised from the outside, and that means the exit itself turns and forms a long tunnel with two turns in it that block any light. Then one of the Queen's Guard, Violet, arrived: checking that Jillian's half of the quarters were in proper shape, which they were despite my overnight guests. I went to the doorway and listened; finally the sounds of Jillian's wings as she floated up and into the space.

"If you need anything at all, ma'am, just alert any of us. The Queen's Guard is at your service." Violet turned to me. "Your highness: Queen Aeris requests the pleasure of your company after sunset today." Violet's face had a small smirk to it, as if to say: "I know what you're going to be doing!"

"Thank you, Violet." Jillian floated past me and collapsed onto her mammoth bed: I followed.

"Oh, Willow... That was... wonderful."

"You look exhausted, Jillian! I should let you sleep."

"Not yet," she said, rolling over to her back and stretching that large, apparently sore, tail out towards me. I didn't see any obvious changes to Jillian's body yet. "Close the door, will you, Violet?"

"Yes, Ma'am." Violet closed the door to Jillian's quarters, to give us privacy.

"Good," I said. "I'm dying to know..."

"Of course," Jillian said. "And I'm dying to tell you: you're the only one, other than Aeris, that I can share this with. You have so much to look forward to, Willow! Or should I say... Daisy?"

I looked back at her in shock.

"What is the harm now? You're queen, after all, minus one night of passion and a bit of information-sharing."

"So... is it true? You know who you used to be, Jillian?"

Jillian nodded. "It's true, Willow. Those rumors are very true. Lily Peters, valedictorian of her class! Most likely to be successful! A born leader! Of course, they believed that this was to be in the world of 'business'..."

"You... had a family? You remember them?"

"I have a family, Willow. In fact, they're nearby. One of them is already here: my mother, Lucy, is presently the Hunter we'd know as Karen. And my sister lives nearby, still human bless her heart; we've left her alone."

"Does it bother you that neither of them... know? Are you going to tell them?"

"Yes, I'll tell them... eventually. I'm definitely taking Karen with me for the swarm so I can keep her close; and I'm seriously thinking of sending a team to capture my sister so she can be with me as well. But I'm not sure: I may just leave her to her own life. These two worlds aren't meant to cross, Willow. Not frequently, at least."

"Why not?"

"You know, I'm not exactly sure. That's what I was hoping I could talk with you about."

I sat on the edge of Jillian's bed. "Okay, I'm all ears."

"I'm not sure I like how things work. I'm thinking of... changing things, WIllow. You'd know something about that--!"

"I would?"

"Daisy Potemkin! Creator of six point zero, the mother of this fantastic, developing world that we all live in! You, of all creatures on this earth, here in our hive, one of us! You would know about orchestrating change. Or, I suppose, you will, once you remember it all."

"I guess."

Jillian threw her head back. "We're... too aggressive. It was fun when it was playful. But I hate that the humans are afraid of us, Willow. I want to change that."

"But--"

"But what?"

"You were one of our best hunters, Jillian. You were on the team that captured me. And from what I gather I wasn't exactly looking to join you."

"That's what I mean. As a hunter... well... I just wanted to do my best, you know?"

"But... Queen Aeris--"

"You can talk it over with her, tonight. She's... in favor of change. Willow. But you know what I really wanted?"

"What?"

"Pizza."

"What???"

"You don't even miss it, do you?"

"Pizza?"

"I didn't think so. Your memory of it... one of those things that's locked away. I think my new hive will have a... kitchen, dining hall. Maybe a restaurant. With a balcony, so we can sit outside and watch the sunset through the trees."

"A balcony??? But... Jillian... we can't eat, like humans do."

"You mean you can't. As of this time tomorrow, Willow, you can do... whatever you want. I want my sisters to be able to remember what a great pizza tastes like. Or rigatoni. Or apple pie. Or... well, you get the idea."

"You're hungry," I said.

"Yes, sort of," she nodded.

"But you'd have to redesign a whole digestive system, equip your new hive with bathrooms, find some place to get food, a way to cook..."

"It'll be a challenge," Jillian said. "I like challenges. There's a farm nearby, I'm sure we can make some kind of deal. It's going to be different, Willow, different than here. I hope you can change this place the same way. It worked well, but... we're not liked very well in the human community. You saw how hard the Hunt was yesterday, how few humans remain near us. The only humans I'm going to hunt down are the ones that encroach on the wildlife I'm swearing to protect, that invade the protected part of my forest. I'm not planning a huge, expansive hive with over a thousand bee-girls like we have here. I'll build up enough to launch a swarm once in a while, if we need to establish new hives, but... it's time for things to settle. We've got the humans under control now, just need to keep it that way, and allow for our fellow species and nature itself to flourish under our watch."

"Wow. That would have been treasonous if you said it just yesterday."

"Willow, you've really got something to look forward to."

"I get that. What was it like? With the Queen?"

"I don't want to spoil that for you. Just a mild hint: You know what it feels like when you're feeding her?"

"Yes, of course." I loved that feeling, especially when the Queen pushed our partially-absorbed human back into my body just so I could feel it.

"It's nothing like that. You'll feel like you're inside her, that she's inside you. Then you'll feel-- and see those huge venom glands as she injects you--"

"What? She's going to sting me??"

"No! Not at all! It just turns out that the venom-- well, it's part of it, prepares you to receive Her final gift to you, can't hurt you at all... and then you sleep and you remember, Willow. And then half the night you talk about wishes and dreams and she gives you, literally, the keys to the kingdom, everything you'd ever want or need to know... Okay. I really don't want to spoil it. I've left some mystery for you, Willow, but I want you to really enjoy it. In case I'm asleep when it's time for you to go, Willow, please give Aeris my thanks once again, Willow... Daisy. I'll miss her."

I couldn't fathom the biology of all this, how it could possibly work. I understood about biological keys and all, but this sounded much more involved than I imagined. And I looked forward to it.

Jillian yawned and I placed a blanket over her human half, kissed her on the cheek, brushed an antenna over her, and-- never facing away from her, as she was officially a Queen now and I was not, not quite yet-- left her chambers so she could sleep.

Rob: Well, now that Jillian has corroborated at least some of what I've been telling you all along, can I call you "Daisy" now?

Willow: Whatever you'd like. I don't feel like a "Daisy", not yet.

Rob: Let's go stretch your wings, Daisy, then. Pass some time. I'm pretty sure that we won't get out of the hive once you're made Queen, and I bet you'd like to see one more afternoon outside. I even know where we can go.

Willow: That sounds great, Rob. Let's do it.

Rob: I don't mention anything about the meeting that I sent the message about the other day, nor that where we're going now is where that meeting is. I'm guessing that Daisy knows that's where we're going, and thinks that either no one will show or it will just be an opportunity to say goodbye to her family before she becomes Queen.

Indeed, both of those things are a fair bit more likely than what I'm really, really hoping will happen; that Belle and whoever else arrives armed for bear and (more importantly) have the 6.0 upgrade on hand and ready. So they can give Daisy back not only her memories, but the ability to change her own body once again. That's pretty much my only chance here, and it's a long one. If that doesn't happen, and Daisy becomes Queen, well...even though she might have the opportunity to change in the fullness of time, I'm not sure she'll ever want to.

And I'm not sure if I would ever want to change from what she would give me, either. And that, above all, is what really scares me.

So, here we are. Flying in the clear afternoon air, with only a fools hope standing between me and...yeah.

But it's nice outside, Daisy is a marvellous flier, and for a few moments I'm just content to take it all in. After all, if things go right then it will be likely I can't take to the sky myself for a while, so I may as well enjoy it.

I do still entertain the hope that even if things go horribly wrong today (and there's a real chance they will) that Daisy would do what Jillian has said she would do: change the Hive from within, make it so that no innocents are taken, turn the bee girls from pure nasty predators into just another one of the new species peacefully coexisting here.

But, on the other hand...words are cheap. I have no doubt that Jillian could do what she said when she had that conversation with Daisy, but overcoming her own body, that instinct to take, feed, reproduce by whatever means necessary...even if it were to start that way, how long would it be, at what point would, say, a food shortage, cause a slideback to the way they are now?

Perhaps I'm being too cynical about the whole thing, but that is something I could easily see happening. To Jillian, or to Daisy if she became Queen herself.

So...as far as I'm concerned, the only way this changes is from the outside. Fundamental changes applied not from a Queen, but from someone acting from the outside.

And that someone is Daisy.

Once she has the 6.0 ability back, she could apply the changes Jillian talked about herself, without threatening her own identity and in a way that might extend to every bee girl colony in the future. A future the bee-girls would have to accept, and a better future for them and for those they once hunted.

But that only happens if this meeting today is successful. And, like I said...fools hope.

I decide to seek Daisy's own thoughts on this.

Do you really think that what Jillian talks about can be done, Daisy?

Willow: I have to believe in her. She says I had something to do with inventing 6.0? That just doesn't seem like it would be me. But neither can I imagine having pizza, or a burger, or a salad... but I must have liked those things. Here...

I made a slow sweeping turn, off course, to my right. A plaza, there, an outdoor cafe. Tables where humans would congregate and eat. There are none here now-- we're still too close to the Hive, humans are too cautious. See? They like it... I must have... at one point.

Rob: Yes, you did, Daisy. And you didn't just have something to do with inventing 6.0...you had everything to do with it.

I send her a memory. Just a single picture. The computer screen with the data. What she had planned before Alicia took her in. What her vision was for the future.

I could show you more if you like. You know now that I'm not lying to you. You had this brilliant idea, Daisy. A way to truly end conflict, oppression, warfare. It gives me grief to think that a friend of yours took it and turned it against you.

Willow: Jillian's lucky, actually. I think I'd rather be building something new, green space, protecting wildlife, then maintaining a Hive out here in a city that's a mere shell of its former self. I really want to pick Aeris' brain tonight. She and Mary... they created this. Was their mission to... I don't know, take over the world? Wipe every last human out? I mean... Aeris would have enjoyed 'pizza' or whatever too, right? So why did they decide to do... this? I think I'll scale back, perhaps do what Jillian's doing.

Rob: Do you think you'll have that freedom, Daisy? Whatever good vision Aeris and Mary may have had when they started this - if indeed there was any good vision at all - was lost long ago. Lost in the sea of their on biological makeup, lost to their evolutionary imperative. Whether they wanted to hunt humans for the power trip initially or not...that's the way it ended up turning out anyway.

Willow: Why wouldn't I have that freedom?

Rob: You're about to become Queen Bee, Daisy. Ovaries the size of grapefruit. A body able to convert a dozen humans a day, even more--

Willow: Aeris' record was twenty-one.

Rob: I worry that you are going to fall into the same trap that befell Aeris - if indeed at the start her intentions were in any way pure. Your physiology is going to make you want to use that body the way it was designed. To breed. To scavenge every last human within your reach and turn as many as you can into bee-girls like yourself. Like what is happening now.To consume in the way your sister did - and maybe still does. Can you guarantee that, once you become Queen, that wouldn't happen?

Willow: I don't know. I wish I could say, Rob, that... that thought doesn't... appeal to me somehow. I can imagine it, can't you? Laying all those warm, wriggling, soon-to-be bee-girls? Getting fed by the hunters, over and over...? But... you're right. I can't do that, can I? Not and... live with myself, if indeed I'm about to get actual free will back? If I'm not responsible, Rob, who possibly could ever be?

Rob: That's right, Daisy. You've seen what the bee girls do, how they treat humans and other beings they consider lesser - how, even, they caught you - and still you are having to fight that base instinct already. Look...I don't doubt the strength that you have, and I'm sure if and when you get all of your memories back you might well be able to hold to the path that Jillian laid out. But there will always be that call in the back of your mind, that urge, wanting you to consume, and to breed. I don't think that becoming Queen gives you free will, Daisy - I think it takes even more of it away than what you have now.

I'm certainly afraid that if I become a bee girl I will become prisoner to that urge. And I'm also afraid that, even if that's not the case at the start, that you will too. Become just another bee-girl, one who had a great vision of a future, but she then lost it. Able, but unwilling to change what she is.

That would be your responsibility, Daisy. Because you know the path ahead now, and so it's yours to change if you want to.


Willow: I... I remember... the beginning...

You're going to be my daughter, just like you're supposed to be.

But...

Don't fight it, little one. Here, I've come up with a good name for you. I'll stick with the plant theme...

But I already have a name!!!

Oh? What is it, if you're so insistent?

I... it's... I... I can't remember...??

It's Willow. That's a nice name, don't you think?

But that's not my name! It was...

It's Willow. Willow. Willow. Say it. What's your name?

W... Willow.

Say it again.

Willow.

That's my little larva. Obedient. Aren't you? You'd lay down your little life to protect me, wouldn't you? That's all I ask, Willow. In return for granting you life, you pledge eternal loyalty to me, don't you, Willow?


Am I supposed to do that... to you? Is that the price I'm supposed to make you pay... to keep you alive?

Rob: Yes. That's right.

I remember your fear as Aeris stripped you of everything that defined you...made you her brainwashed servant - forever - and made you like it. That was exactly what was said, and what was done to you. That's the point where your freedom was taken from you, Daisy. And yes...even though you may not intend it to be so, that is exactly what I fear - and think - you might do to me, should you become Queen.


Willow: I don't want to do that to you. I don't want to do that to anyone.

Rob: I give a soft sigh of relief. Finally. Finally finally finally. Understanding.

I know you don't. And maybe, just maybe, you won't have to.

Willow: I'll have that choice?

Rob: I...can't offer any reassurances on that score. That, right there, is exactly why you becoming Queen could be dangerous for me...for my identity. It may be that - just as we just said - your biology makes you do it. It may be that it made Aeris do what she did, but who knows?

But...I have faith in you, Daisy. If anyone can overcome that instinct and make sure that it doesn't happen again, then it's you.


Willow: Was my name really "Daisy"? Did I like pizza?

Rob: Your name was definitely Daisy. As for the pizza...well, if I'm honest I didn't really get to know you much before...what happened with your sisters happened. I only have second-hand memories to go on...but yes, I think you did. Hopefully one day in the near future you can like it again. And we can begin to make things right.

All right the...looks like a park down there. Remember this place? It's where you convinced that girl to come along with you during the Games. Let's have another look, shall we? There looks to be someone sitting on the same bench that she was on...


My God. She's there. She is there.
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42: It's Her!

Postby dreamweevil » Tue Jun 06, 2017 7:05 pm

Belle: My sister is going to be death of us all. I shout out the open window at her: "Clarisse! No breathing fire near the house! Or the woods! Or anywhere!"

Clarisse has been practicing swooping turns in the backyard. The problem with having a baby dragon for a sister, other than wishing you had a fire department next door, is that little dragons turn into big dragons, although very slowly. We're building a new building just for her-- I laughingly call it "the barn", but the contractor is behind schedule so right now we just have a concrete slab out back with some wires and pipes sticking up from it. I wish people would think about this: yes, you can be whatever you want. But where are you going to live, once your wings or tail or what-have-you no longer fits through our human doorways?

I hear a ping from over my head. I haven't heard that ping in several months, and for the first time I consider just ignoring it. It'll be spam, an ad pleading with me to upgrade from the absolute lowest, cheapest level of service, a "wrong number", something like that. I've toyed with disconnecting the service on that phone but I haven't been able to bring myself to do it.

Finally I sigh and get up. I blow the dust off the old phone and look at the sender.

Not Daisy. It's never Daisy. Some number I've never seen before. And the message: half a paragraph of total gibberish.

I set the phone back on its bookshelf-- still plugged in, since the battery on this phone lasts about thirty seconds, and went back to work, checking out the window again to make sure Clarisse wasn't trying to burn the house down out of spite (she wasn't).

Finally, after about another ten minutes: Fine. This only proves my own insanity, but one more time...

I snapped a picture of the gibberish and walked it over to Daisy's bedroom, to her computer. Woke it up, and painstakingly transcribed what I saw on the screen into Daisy's computer. It was a pain because there were accented characters, symbols, junk. Clicked "Decode".

It decoded.

Not to anything that made sense: a twelve digit number. Some letters. Two decimal numbers separated by a comma. That's all. Nothing suggesting it was from Daisy, no "Hi there", no... anything. But usually a failed decryption results in garbage, and here I had all genuine UTF-8 text that looked like it was trying to say something.

Nobody else-- only I-- would have that key. Even Alicia doesn't know it: Daisy'd made me swear.

I stared out Daisy's bedroom window for a moment, and then back to the message. Numbers. That's the year. It's a date and time. Tomorrow. One-thirty in the afternoon. But I can't figure out the rest of it.

I have Alicia on the phone in sixty seconds only because I tell her call screener that it's urgent.

"Hi, Sis. What's up?"

"I think I just got a message from Daisy."

Alicia is instantly infuriated. "Belle, we've been over this time and time again. I've gone on every wild-bird-chase you've sent me on, but it's time to come to grips with reality here. Daisy is gone."

"Then what happened to her? You're so smart?"

"You know what I think happened to her. I just couldn't prove it. The snake-women got her."

Clarisse, looked over my shoulder at this message on Daisy's screen, her warm but thankfully not flaming breath over my ear. "What's that?"

"I don't know. It decoded with Daisy's key. We're trying to see if it's from her, I just called Alicia to see if she could make sense of it."

"Fine,' came the message over the phone.

I read the message, one character at a time, off to Alicia.

"Okay. This is definitely a date and time. Tomorrow. But the letters, I don't know."

"I M A B", Clarisse read out loud.

"What did you say?"

"These letters. I. Am. A. Bee," Clarisse repeated.

"These other numbers could be cooordinates," Alicia said. "Hang on."

A pause. "It's about two kilometers west of where Daisy disappeared."

"I knew it!! Alicia, She wasn't taken by the lamia, she was snagged by the bee-girls!"

"Belle," Alicia scolded, "we've been over this like a hundred times! Look, I miss Daisy too. I've had six goddamned facial recognition cameras on the entrance to that goddamned hive. Four of them are even still working. It's given us a unique population count of the hive, so we know how many bees live there, but it's also been looking for Daisy. You know how many hits on that we've gotten?"

"Zero," I said.

"Zero," Alicia confirmed. "If Daisy's there, she's never left the building."

"They could have changed her appearance," I argued.

"I'll grant that. But then they could have changed everything about her, to the point where she's not Daisy anymore. What we know is a lot more humans go into that hive than bees coming out. For all I know, if the bees did get her, she was just food to them."

"I can't believe that anyone could be that heartless."

"Well, start believing it, Sis. And thanks to the goddamned Interspecies Non-Interference Charter, there's nothing I can do about it, at least officially.'

"Then what's the message?"

"Well, if it's from the bees, it's probably a trap. They want to get rid of me, I expect. It's just... unusual. They don't send messages like that, don't use electronics, don't even have electricity. Who's the sender?"

I read off the sender's address.

"Alright. I'll follow up. This one last time. But if it's another one of your damned wild-bird-chases, Belle, I'm going to send uniformed officers to take that phone from you and get rid of it once and for all. For your sake as well as mine."

Alicia hung up.

"Do you think it's really Daisy?"

"I don't know, Clarisse. But I think we owe it to her to follow up. Wouldn't it be amazing to find her, after all this time?"

"Yeah."

. . .

Alicia called back about forty minutes later. "Okay. We're on. The phone was a girl, an avian like Daisy, and we can't contact her. Her family hasn't heard from her. From her tablet we see that she strayed into bee-territory."

"So... if the bees took her phone, maybe Daisy got a hold of it and got a message off to us?"

"Only one problem with that theory, Belle. Avians can usually outfly bees. She'd have to be on the ground. I couldn't get a detailed track, but the last ping showed her well north of the hive, outside the bee-girls' usual range, so this girl wasn't walking. So, against my better judgment, I'm about to spend many thousands of taxpayer dollars yet again for what will definitely not turn out to be our sister."

"Thank you! Alicia, I know this is a long shot, but if it was her-- or even someone that knows what happened to her, could bring us closure... and we didn't follow up, I'd never forgive myself, Alicia."

"Yeah. This time I will have to insist that you help us. I'm emailing you an itinerary and will meet you at the airport. I need you to be the bait, Belle; I'm not risking one of my officers on this, sorry."

"Okay."

. . .

I'm sitting, as instructed, on a park bench in an nondescript suburban green space, a big triangle formed by three roads through the town; a couple of old rusted-out swings, long blacktop walkway, a park bench.

And thousands of dollars worth of equipment that Alicia's team has buried just underground. And me. Bait.

Alicia's crew has made it very clear that they cannot guarantee my safety. I am to sit, outside, seemingly unprotected, just a few kilometers from a very active bee-girl hive, where the bee-girls are frequently seen, patrolling territory and hoping to stumble across a careless human being. Or one that doesn't mind becoming yet another bee-girl herself.

The bees are clever, I've been warned. Despite the netting that's been hidden, the bees have been known to make sneak attacks from an unexpected direction. I got the full Bee lesson, the number one rule of which is: Don't panic. The bee-girls are engineered to create fear in humans when they want to. They're scary, loud, and tend to come at you stinger-first, and your human instinct will always be to run. Running does not help. It gives them an easy target; you can be stung and lifted into the air in one motion and that's the end of you.

So this could very well be my last day.

Alicia and her crew of four other women are hidden nearby. There are cameras and microphones in the trees, a tracking beacon in my right ear, and a team monitoring them all. They had upward-facing cameras watching for bee-girl scouts-- they're known to survey an area well ahead of any attack, but none have come this way and those cameras have been taken away now that we're all set up.

I am frightened. Very frightened. Nothing has happened as of 1:29pm and I already feel like I'm going to pee my pants.

1:35. nothing. The voice in my ear says that the bee-girls aren't generally punctual: they don't wear watches, have no need for them.

1:39: "Okay, we've got one. Alone. No others in the area."

1:40: "She's huge. A Guard of some sort, I think."

I shiver. Then she comes over the horizon, gliding, and, thank goodness-- without her stinger postured toward me. I keep expecting it: that curl of the tail, taking her aim. But she's unaware of the trap, heading in the trajectory Alicia hoped, right into one of the two nets.

She lands. Her tail is large, larger than most I've seen, but the rest of her is normal, human. I don't recognize her: the wishful thought that it would be Daisy is dashed. But she's not threatening me at all. In fact, she seems... disoriented, desperate:

"B-Belle?"

Before I can answer, there's a loud bang, and a whoosh, as two rockets hidden near the bench deploy a shiny, metallic net, separating me from the bee-girl. She looks back in shock as the net falls over her, fouling her wings; she buzzes and thrashes and four members of the Regional Protective Service run from their cover to secure the edges of the net and make sure the bee-girl's stinger gets nowhere near me.

"Got her," one of the agents yells. "Nice job," Alicia says.

I get up. "Careful," one agent cautions, but I walk up, onto the net, to get a look. I stare deep into her eyes. She looks nothing like my sister but the bees were unable to take those deep eyes from her.

The bee-girl thrashes. One is down by her tail. "Go ahead! Sting me! Defend yourself!"

This large jar with a rubber top is pressed up against the bee-girl's stinger. The stinger comes through the mesh of the net.

"That's it! Fight back!" the agent screams at the trapped bee-girl.

The jar fills up with a yellowish fluid as the girl desperately tries to sting. "Shit! That's a lot of venom!", the agent yells. She's completely shocked by the volume of it: it fills the jar, and when the agent pulls the jar away the rubber seal is bulging and the venom sprays. "Don't touch that!" Alicia yells. "It may be a contact poison too!"

The agent handles the jar carefully. "Seal that up," Alicia orders. "Get it to the lab right away. We think it degrades once exposed to air."

Meanwhile, I'm convinced. Deep in the crying girl's eyes, there is no question. They couldn't take that from her. "It's Daisy."

"Belle...?" my sister says, crying.

. . .

I sign in at the desk, again, show ID, get my visitor pass, the whole deal. Stacy and I proceed down the hospital corridor.

"She's not herself yet," I inform Stacy. "It looks like the worker bee-girls don't have Daisy's 6.0 core DNA, which is why they can't escape. Their memories are locked up." It took two full days for the experts to untangle all this and deliver the treatment, convincing Daisy to unlock her own core genetics. "I have no idea how Daisy remembered enough to get this far, and neither do they. Just... be prepared for what you're about to see."

There, strapped to her hospital bed, was an honest-to-goodness bee girl. Larger than Stacy had ever seen. The girl herself-- my sister-- normal size, but her tail section, the dangerous part, was much larger than the normal bee-girl that we have pictures of.

Stacy came over and looked deep into Daisy's eyes. She saw the same thing that I did. "It's her."

"Daisy."

Daisy looked up, big dark eyes. "S-- Stacy??"

"Yes, you loon. Look what you've gotten yourself into! I always knew you'd be trouble." She turned to the lab-coated doctor at Daisy's side. "Can I?"

"Of course. She's harmless now."

I looked down. No stinger at all; it had been removed somehow.

Stacy wrapped her arms around Daisy, and kissed her on the cheek, and just held her. "I am never, ever, taking my eyes off of you again."

Stacy sat up. "It's definitely Daisy."

"Stacy... you... we're best... friends... and..."

"And more," Stacy confirmed.

"You have to tell them," Daisy whispered, breathless. "They have to let me go. I have to get back. I'm supposed to be queen! I was chosen! They're waiting for me!"

Alicia was leaning up against the wall, legs and arms crossed. "Of course. Exactly what the world needs. You pumping out more of those miserable insects from your miserable twat, wherever that is."

"Alicia!" I chided. Curious, I looked. Nothing between her legs at all.

"She's not queen yet," Alicia said, casually. "But apparently she was chosen for that role. That would make sense, because if our counts are right that hive is about to swarm."

I leaned over. "Were you going to lead the swarm, or stay behind?"

"I was supposed to stay. Jillian was supposed to... lead."

"Right." Alicia turned to us. "The bee-girls all seem to get new names early on. Your sister was known as 'Willow'. So no idea who Jillian used to be."

Daisy thought about that for a moment. "Lily Peters. She told me herself. Oh, God, did I say too much? I don't know who's allowed to know."

Alicia tapped the name into her pad and sent it off. "Thanks, Daisy. Lily's family will want to know, I'm sure."

We watched and just sat for a minute or two. Alicia's tablet pinged. "Lily's mother was taken by the bees too. She's got--"

"Her mother is a Hunter in the colony. They've got specific orders to leave her sister alone.'

Alicia made notes of that too. "Okay, Daisy, you've made catching you worth our while."

Daisy looked at Stacy, then, at me. "How long has it been?"

"Two days," Alicia volunteered.

"No... since I was... a bee... girl?"

"Seventeen months," I answered. "You've been gone almost a year and a half."

Tears came to Daisy's eyes. "So... long!" She turned to Stacy. "Where is... where is... B... Brad?"

I looked. Now Stacy had tears in her eyes too: "I... I was hoping you'd know."

"What?"

"Three weeks after you disappeared. Alicia's investigation of the lamia didn't find anything-- they denied taking you but Alicia wouldn't listen. Brad and I were convinced that the Hive had you. He... he... sacrificed himself to them, hoping... he'd be able to... find you."

"And the world has another bee-girl to contend with," Alicia said, "just like I said would happen. I tried to stop him, Daisy. I really did."

"Three weeks... I'd only have been a... larva," Daisy said. "If he's there I have no idea who he is, if he's even..." Tears again. "...alive! If I was queen-- just one more day-- I'd know for sure!"

"Hmph. Serves him right," Alicia said.

That tore it. "Alicia! Along with Stacy, Brad was the love of her life and you know that! Daisy is your sister! Why do you have to be so mean to her?"

Alicia uncrossed her legs but remained leaning against the wall. "Oh... let's see. Your sister unleashed this scourge on us! Six point zero! Everybody can be whatever the hell they want to be!" She pulled away from the wall and walked over to Daisy. "You really didn't think this through, sister, did you? Never considered that one of your creations could use her 'freedom' to take away that of others??"

Daisy thrust her tail in Alicia's direction. "Aaugh!"

Alicia reached down, picked up Daisy's black, shiny, impossibly sharp stinger from a cloth-lined tray. "Looking for this? I'm thinking it'll make a nice trophy on my wall back at headquarters."

The doctor looked at Alicia. "Alicia, we can't hold her much longer if she regains her memory. Unless you plan to charge her with some kind of crime."

"Of course I can't."

"Then... we can keep her to five tonight, for observation. But that's all."

"I have to get back," Daisy said.

"You... you can't ever go back to the hive," I said. "They won't trust you now. I'm pretty sure they'd kill you if you tried."

My sister looked at me with big, puppy-dog eyes. Her tail went limp. "What... what have I done?"
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43: Recovery

Postby dreamweevil » Thu Jun 15, 2017 3:14 pm

Belle:

"That's the question we always seem to circle back to," Alicia said. "'What has Daisy done this time?'"

"She didn't do this, Alicia. She merely got caught up in some other woman's invention," I answered. "Why don't you go ask her?"

Alicia didn't budge, physically or otherwise. "No human could get anywhere near a Queen Bee, Belle."

"I've hunted down human beings," Daisy whispered. Everyone else went silent. "There was this man... he was threatening my sister--"

"Most of the bee-girls are sisters," Alicia explained, for those who might have forgotten.

"I stung him in the neck. I... swallowed him. I asked the queen not to turn him into one of us. I'm pretty sure she didn't."

Alicia stood up. "You swallowed him? I thought only the queen did the unbirthing?"

"The hunters start the process," Daisy answered. "The queen need not be bothered with such things, and it feeds the hunters."

This surprised me. "Wait-- you mean... people aren't just converted to bee-girls? I thought that's how--"

Alicia turned on me. "Belle, you can't honestly believe that the bees actually preserve every human that they take, now, do you?" She pointed at Daisy. "Look at her! The bee-girls are all larger than the humans they replace, and they're constantly burning energy hunting and reproducing. What's the ratio, Daisy? You must know it, almost Queen Bee yourself."

"Ratio?" I asked.

"The number of humans taken to produce one bee-girl. Over three to one, according to the cameras."

Daisy's face went blank as she did the math in her head. "Three point six," she finally said.

"See? They're not just transforming humans into more of themselves, like so many other creatures seem to do these days. No. To the bees it's an art form. A challenge. A fucking industry. They've perfected it, and sold the fantasy that if you join them you get to 'bee' one of them. But you don't. You get to be a quarter of one of them. How many other humans were joined with you, Daisy??"

"None," Daisy said. "The queen told me I was... special."

Alicia rolled her eyes. "Of course."

"The point is that these things are going to wipe human beings, and anything else that gets in their way, off the face of the Earth. And our precious, special sister here not only was participating, but she's the one who made it possible in the first place. What are we going to have next? Harpies? Mosquitoes? Dragons??"

"I'm telling Clarisse that you're officially afraid of her," I said. "She'll be happy to hear that."

Alicia shook her head, miffed. "You know what I mean."

The doctor, who was monitoring some equipment attached to Daisy, spoke up. "I'm sorry for listening in, but... there's some who think the bees may have saved us all. Despite the fact that humans with the genetic modifications have been having fewer children, we were already in the middle of our own extinction event. Early indications are that, where the bees seem to be positioning themselves, that they may actually have brought us back from the brink. Where humans were living in overcrowded, impoverished misery, and had nearly destroyed the entire ecosys--"

"I'm sorry, Doctor," Alicia said, "You took a vow to do no harm. These things didn't ask us if we wanted to be saved."

"I'm sorry," the doctor said. "I shouldn't overstep. I'm discharging your sister. The nurse will be by with the paperwork and instructions."

"What? That's all?" Alicia barked.

"There is nothing else wrong with her. She has the ability to recover on her own, beyond that, the rules clearly state that I cannot--"

"Oh, fuck your goddamn rules," Alicia said, as the doctor headed out.

"I took a little girl," Daisy whispered.

"What?" Alicia and I asked together.

"Her... family... was taken. She was alone, scared, orphaned. We found her hiding in her parents' closet." Daisy pointed at her own thigh. "I stung her. Right here. I did it."

I felt my own expression go blank. "Daisy! What... happened to her?"

"Her name was Lisa."

"But-- Daisy... what... happened?"

"She became my apprentice. Since this was never supposed to happen, the Queen allowed her to keep her own body. Along with her name. And her mother."

"Who... became a bee-girl also?"

"Yes. They were the same age. We hunted together. I... miss her. And I'd like to see Sage again, and Amanda, and..."

My sister broke down into tears. Then, recovering, she took a steely glance directly at Alicia. "You know something about that, don't you?"

"What?"

"Hunting people down and removing them."

"What are you talking about? I'll get the doctor back. You're going crazy again," Alicia said.

"Which human in this room has a vagina that is, quite literally, licensed to kill? Come now, Alicia. I see you imagining it. Chasing someone down, that fierce anger, you'd love it... taking aim with that stinger, your victim helpless--"

"It's different and you know it, Daisy."

This time I took Alicia's side. "Yes," I said. "Daisy... it's not exactly the same. The bee-girls take innocent victims."

"And...?"

"I've had enough of this," Alicia said. "Where's that nurse? I want to get the hell out of here."

. . .

I spent most of the next week caring for Daisy. She could not eat, not yet, and her body was living off of the stored energy in her tail section while she worked at rebuilding her digestive system. She looked for three things: a picture of herself, and a mirror, and her computer, which she used to help design a slow, careful path from where she was to where she wanted to be. She lived in our playroom, too large still to get upstairs, no way to sleep in a human bed. She cried quite a bit. Her body started to develop a new stinger before she changed that programming; the tiny, needle-like appendage simply fell away and did not reappear after that.

Finally, I found her upstairs, in our bathroom. Whereas a bee-girl has nothing at all between her legs, apparently Daisy had rebuilt enough of her anatomy, and lost enough mass from her tail, to use a toilet. She kept her bee-wings, "for now" as she said, and did not show any hint of the avian plumage she used to have. I asked her about that. She didn't know what she wanted to be, or what should become of her. It was crushing. Virtually impossible to cheer her up. Even Stacy had this problem: the intimacy they used to have seemed gone even though the affection seemed to be there; a smoldering ember trying to recover from having the cold water of a seventeen-month absence splashed on it.

I was making breakfast for her when she came upstairs, scraping her tail against the frame of the basement door for like the thirtieth time.

"I'm leaving," she announced.

"No, you're not," I told her.

"Yes. I am. I have to. When I was captured I was in the middle of a transaction with the Lamia that I am obligated to conclude."

"You're not ready," I said. "You still look like a bee-girl." Her hair was starting to change, her antennae were gone, and her face looked a lot more like Daisy, but it hadn't been long enough. "That's way too close to your home colony and you know it."

"You mean... because I've been a bee-girl once I'm going to relapse or something?"

"Possibly," Belle said. "But I'm more worried of them taking you out because of what you know, the risk you represent. If they spot you, they're going to either capture you or kill you."

"I'll have to take that chance."

"What 'transaction' is this, Daisy, that could possibly be worth that risk? Why can't you tell me? What business do you have with them?"

"I can't say. But I owe a critical favor to someone who was instrumental in saving my life."

"That's not good enough! If you can't tell me, I'm not letting you go!"

"Who said I need your permission?"

I got my tablet out and tapped an emergency SOS to Stacy, who was home with her family.

"What are you doing?"

"You're taking Stacy with you."

"What? No!"

"Yes. I can't stop you from leaving, and she might not be able to either, but she can outfly you if she has to and she loves you. As do I."

Daisy and I sat there, looking at each other, for a good sixty seconds. "Okay," Daisy said. "She can keep an eye on me. I'd like the company."

Stacy arrived not ten minutes later, and I explained the situation. I left the two of them alone, and apparently Stacy, in that moment, was convinced that the trip was necessary. With that assurance, Daisy agreed to stay overnight and leave in the morning. Stacy got out her tablet, worked out a flight plan, and booked a hotel. She slept down in the playroom with Daisy that night and, as far as I know, has not left her side since. They flew off after breakfast.
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44: Francesca

Postby dreamweevil » Sun Jun 18, 2017 6:14 am

Rob: Okay, I suppose I'm ready to try this again. After...something of a delay.

I am soaring through the air at what Daisy tells me is twenty-three hundred feet. A compromise: Stacy would like to fly higher and faster, of course, but Daisy would rather be hugging the treetops. It must be a strange sight, literally the bird and the bee, together overhead.

Of course, I don't get to see any of this with my own eyes, for as the same as the past however-long-it-is, I am still trapped within the belly of a girl. Or her mind. Or both. Oh, and for a little while further, the former of those is definitely going to apply. As Daisy flies, her new, "human" ovaries are becoming primed to do what ovaries do: produce an egg.

I, my entire consciousness, will be sealed inside one egg as Daisy produces it. I've been inside an egg before, and if you recall it didn't really end well for me (save the timely intervention of the girl who now carries me). I feel like my awareness, my consciousness, has been shaken up by these women like a milkshake, and both Daisy and I are desperately trying to hold me together until I can get, as promised, a body of my own.

During lulls in her aerial conversation with her lover Stacy, Daisy is conversing with me, getting to make body decisions that don't make a big difference as, if things go according to plan, one of the snake-women will soon have her way with me, and turn me into one of them as opposed to whatever Daisy might envision. So I need to make input on that too.

There seems to be an unwritten rule: no mentioning what happened with the bee-girls or in the hospital. I know that makes sense; talking about it would only bring Daisy pain and could well cause her identity confusion, right at the time when she's recovering from it. So I don't talk about it to her, at all.

I do think about it though.

Of course I was there when she was captured and brought to the hospital, a confused, terrified bee-girl only beginning to come to terms with who she was before.

I saw Alicia and Belle there, talking to her in their various ways. It hardly goes without saying that I gave away nothing to betray my presence within Daisy's mind, and I'm deeply thankful she went out of her way to hide me from them too. It is much, much better for all of that family bar Daisy to think I'm gone, forgotten...until the time is right.

But some of what they said did get me thinking. What Alicia said, in particular, when Daisy was lying there in the hospital as well as afterwards, especially regarding the bee-girls...I found myself agreeing with almost every word. She understood exactly how they operated, and what they intended. (Apart from directly blaming Daisy for it because of the 6.0 upgrade, that is). She even used one of my lines - about them using their own freedom to inhibit the freedom of others - almost verbatim - and that is exactly what they did (and do). Funny, huh?

Of course our reasons for animosity towards the bee-girls were different, I think: I reviled them because of their abuse of power, but Alicia doesn't like them because in her mind they were a rival for her own abuse of power. So there was that. Takes a vicious powermonger to know a vicious powermonger, it would seem.

I said little as Daisy began her recovery steps: as I said, this was something she had to do herself. I wish I could have helped her - she was so morose and sad for most of it - but I honestly couldn't think of anything I could say that would help. When she mentioned the line about how dangerous Alicia was I almost decided to intervene because Alicia might have asked exactly what she was referring to there...but thankfully that conversation didn't go in that direction. It was almost as if Alicia and Belle were afraid to look further, like they thought some kind of bee-girl conditioning still within Daisy could affect them or whatever. But...that suited me down to the ground. I remained just a shadow.

Anyway, back to the present...I have to trust that Daisy knows what she's doing. She... seems to. I've got to trust her.

First, she had me imagine who I was-- before all of this happened. Remember how long ago that was? A young man, completely and utterly human, pure 1.0, in his room finishing up what was supposed to be a brilliant thesis on quantum encryption. Before Alicia. Before all the madness entered my life (through no small fault of my own). Daisy has me imagine standing there, naked, in that college apartment, which is pretty damn difficult for me as even in my imagination I'm fearing that knock on the door that set me out on that grotesque pathway.

So Daisy inserts herself into my imagination. Regular, old, plain, human Daisy, only older than she would have been back then. She's standing in front of me, just as naked as I am, looking me over, asking me to remember every little detail, because it's important. My hair color. My build. Did I have chest hair? What did my toes look like. And then, unabashedly, she reaches out and touches my genitals.

It's not sexual. It feels more like a doctor, examining me if I'd gone to her for that reason.

"You're handsome," she says, just as real as if the sound had come out of her mouth.

"No, I'm not." See? There's that old insecurity - one of the things that tripped me up when I opened my door to Alicia.

"I think you are."

For the first time, I see her for who she used to be. I'm looking at a naked woman, and... unlike her sister, who aroused and frightened me (one a fair bit more than the other), I'm suddenly flooded with the sense that Daisy is a true friend. One who has shared everything, even herself, with me. I was honoured to be able to rescue her from what those bee-girls had in store for her; I just wish I could have done it sooner.

"But now you're going to be pretty. That's what you want, right?"

"Well..." I don't quite know how to answer that one.

"I want to make the lamia's job as easy as possible," Daisy said. "But I don't know that physiology in detail. I can take a rough guess, but let's start with the part I know about, shall we?"

"I... guess."

"You know what's coming next. I'm about to turn you into a girl."

"I got that message pretty clearly."

"You've never been a girl before."

"I've been living inside one for quite some time now. I think I'm starting to get the idea."

Daisy, making the point to let me see her form those words in the imaginary representation of herself, smiled at me. "We'll see about that."

She took my hands and started guiding them over my equally imaginary body, slowly reshaping me as though I were made of clay.

"You're going to have all the power you need to adjust your own body plan whenever you feel you need to," she explained. "Your host-- soon to be your 'mother', in a way, is going to set your initial plan the way she wants it; and that's the design you were hoping for, I know; but I'm arranging things so nobody can take that ability away from you, at least if I can help it. But if we get you close to what you'd like to become, you'll be more likely to become exactly that."

I give a mental smile at that. "Thank you, Daisy."

Her hands, and mine, linger over my chest. "How... big?"

I think on that for a moment. I'm actually engineering my own breast size.

"Reasonably so, but not overly. Just above average."

This felt very strange. She and I worked together to shape my new bust, my waist, my hips. She slowly and sensually ran her hands down my naked arms and adjusted these too. She asked about my har color, my eye color, eyebrows, everything. Even my navel.

Then she got down to... below my waist.

"It's a shame to say goodbye to this," she said, lifting my genitals for a closer look.

"They're imaginary anyway," I said. "With what I'm about to get, I'm not entirely sure I'll miss it."

What's going on? I heard Stacy ask, in the distance.

Helping Rob with his new body plan. Just keep us on course. I should be done in a little bit.

Oh. Of course. Go ahead.

How much further? Daisy asked.

Fifty-one kilometers.

"Okay. Where were we? Oh, right. Of course."

Daisy put her hand over my manhood. "There's no turning back from this," she said. "Not that there really ever was: our core design doesn't include a Y chromosome. I don't know exactly how these snake-women work, as I said, so you're going to be a human woman for now. If you want male parts someday-- that'll be up to you."

"I'm hoping it's not too big a difference."

"In many ways it isn't. But in others it goes right through to your core. By the way... you'll probably feel best with a new name. Roberta? Robin? Something like that?"

"I already know it," I answered. "Francesca. Francesca Castella."

"That's interesting. What inspired that?"

I think again for a little while before delivering my response. I have a pretty good idea of what I intend next, but I don't really want to burden Daisy with the specifics of it.

"Well...once I get this new lamia form and am strong enough to use it effectively, I'm in the mood to...right some injustices. Deliver some punishment. I think that name fits for that."

"Okay. Francesca it is. Let's make you look like one, shall we?"

"Go for it."

Daisy pressed her hand into my crotch. "Imagine your ovaries," she said. "Just like mine. Imagine the power that they hold: the ability to create your own offspring. Imagine them growing within you, that power, that feminine power, all yours. You're not going to be someone's captive ever again, Francesca. You're going to be in charge. You're going to be whoever you want to be. A snake-woman. Powerful. Sexy. Confident. Right? Feel that passage forming, your womb, the connection between that power and the real world. Nobody can stop it. Nobody can prevent you from becoming what you're going to become, of doing what you want to do."

My eyes (or at least the vision of them) almost roll into the back of my (imaginary) head as I heed Daisy's words, letting that imagination flow through my mind. If Alicia or Cerys had offered me this, this way...yes, of course I would have done it.

No ones captive ever again. Ready to rejoin the world. To take on parts of it...and win. And to change, whenever I want to.

A gift.

. . .

I looked in a virtual mirror at myself, at the body I would have had if I'd been born human. Sort of. Daisy didn't spend much time on my legs, on my rear end, as once I became a lamia I'd have neither of those things. But we talked about it. I'd have an experience that Daisy didn't. I'd be on my own, with people who... hopefully... would care about me. I'd be able to make difference in the world with my own two hands and my tail and, still the most important part of myself... my mind.

As I look, Im astonished.

"It's perfect, Daisy. Exactly what I imagined."

Daisy laughed enough the the sound emerged into the real world. Stacy inquired: Daisy said she'd tell her later. "Of course it is. You're going to be a beautiful snake-woman, Francesca. I look forward to seeing you once you're born. I have no idea what I'll look like at that point, but I really look forward to seeing it and shaking your real hands and giving you a hug."

"Absolutely. And I promise not to poison you when you do."

Daisy laughed again.

"Okay then. This is it. Your body plan is all set. Your core genetics, ready to accept lamia DNA: this is far as I get to take you. Are you ready?"

"Daisy..."

"Yes?"

"Thank you. Thank you so much for giving me my life back. Better than that...a new life. A better one."

"I'm sorry for our detour, Francesca. I'm glad it was only a detour. Good luck out there."

"So am I...and I'm glad that it turned out that way too and that I was able to help. I hope I'm ready for this."

"You will be. The lamia are great at raising their daughters. It's a terrific community."

"Okay."

"See you soon, Francesca."

Daisy threw what felt like a cloak over me; thin, transparent, vulnerable only to the lamia's reproductive system. Her ovaries went to work, pouring everything she knew of me, my entire consciousness, into a small, gelatinous orb deep inside Daisy's left ovary.

I felt trapped yet again; trapped inside this egg, inside this ovary, inside this girl's reproductive system, inside this girl, but now I felt no fear. Only anticipation. As I knew I now had an ally on the outside.

I could tell that Stacy and Daisy made love that night, for the first time in seventeen months. I felt that mental connection between the two of them; so close I could feel it, and I kind of wished at that moment that Stacy could feel my presence more clearly, get to know me just a little bit. Though I didn't have anywhere close to the clarity of that mental interface as I did earlier, I did feel what I interpreted as a bit of encouragement from the two women: Soon, this will be yours.

I felt it much more clearly the next day; this time, a connection between Daisy and someone else. This is it. Daisy had extended her ovipositor into the waiting receptacle of another creature. I felt the tightness, the pressure building very slowly behind me. A window into the other creature's thoughts opened.

I saw, for an instant, Daisy's eyes. Her body was completely wrapped up inside the coils of the naga that she was making love to. Her name was Laurie. It sounded familiar: it was a date delayed eighteen months with the very same woman who'd offered to take me way back then. We would have met her the very next day, if...

Never mind. Time to focus on the future.

"I'm ready," Laurie whispered, the the dark. She looked to the side: Stacy was right there, jealous, watching, still not taking her eyes from Daisy no matter what the situation.

"Me too," Daisy said.

The two women clenched each other and it felt like Laurie was about to squeeze all the breath from both of their bodies. Then an incredible surge of energy, and fluid, and relentless pressure as Daisy moved me from her body, through the stretch she shared with Laurie, and finally, with one final push, out of herself.

Forever.

Thank you, Daisy.

"It's done," I heard Daisy whisper.

"Yes," Laurie said, mostly for Stacy's benefit. "Hello, my little one." Laurie's egg was right there, waiting. She's conceiving.

Stacy slept next to the two women. Laurie is pregnant. My mother is pregnant with me.

At last. At long last, I rejoin the world.
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Re: Greetings from Jessica's vagina! AMA!

Postby LittleBeast » Tue Jun 20, 2017 4:52 am

Wow. I just discovered this, and it's a hell of a ride.

Rob Francesca, congratulations on finally getting a body. (I just hope they're not premature.) And Daisy, I'd like to thank you for being such an amazing and wonderful person.

I have a few thoughts and questions, and while this might not be the best time, I figure I'll throw them out there for you to respond to whenever you're ready.

Most important is probably the concern I have over memetic infection. We've already maybe seen this in both Alicia and the bee girls; it seems to me that in a "meeting of the minds", the idea that prevails is not necessarily the best or most right one, but the strongest; of course any idea predicated on falsehoods is weaker than one that isn't, but it seems that strong emotions or biological urges can overpower moral certainties. This, I believe, is why Alicia was able to convince nearly everyone that what she was doing to Rob was right, even though from an outside perspective her actions were clearly terrible. It shows even more clearly when Cerys enters the picture; she's easily convinced that Alicia "just needs to be loved" (does! not! excuse! rape! and! kidnapping!) and we can even see Alicia and Casey force Cerys to change her mind about what to do with Rob. As long as the "horizon" keeps people relatively stable, that's a problem but only a small one; but if a dangerous meme becomes strong enough to chain from one person to the next, it could become a very, very big problem very quickly.

Unfortunately, I have no solution to offer for this, not even the start of one. The only thing I can offer is to limit connecting as a preventative measure, which probably wouldn't even help that much if such a meme arose.

Ah well. On to other, more theoretical and potentially fun things.

First here is that it seems to me the shrinking power has been underutilized. I may have gotten some of the details wrong, but as I understand it, the majority of the shrunken mass doesn't effect the outside world, yes? Why not, then, have an extra organ created which stores large amounts of shrunken mass as reserves for transformations? (unless the shrinking process, for some bizarre reason, requires a consenting mind in the shrunken mass - obviously it would then be difficult to utilize generally.) I understand that storing highly shrunken mass can be uncomfortable but I'm sure that could be designed out, and the potential usefulness, especially if quicker transformations become feasible, could be pretty great. (and even without - think how much easier it would be to shift back from, say, a centaur. Not to mention the lack of worry over caloric intake.)

There's also the potential for a person to shrink their entire self roughly permanently (refreshing it every few days I suppose) in order to take very small forms (like faeries), which I presume isn't currently possible due to brain size concerns. But then, you seem to have no problem with overstuffing a regular-sized brain, so perhaps it's not an issue after all.
I have no idea if either of these is feasible, since I don't really understand even the first thing about how the shrinking works. But if they are, they could increase people's options dramatically.

The other thing, which may be a bit out in the land of dubcon, but... Would it be possible to "uplift" an animal with Humanity 6.0? Because that seems like something that would be interesting to see, and I'm sure many people would want to do that for their pets.
(For that matter, I bet there's some people who have transformed themselves to fully animal forms by now.)
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45: Hello, World

Postby dreamweevil » Wed Jun 21, 2017 7:35 pm

Francesca:

Time went by, like it does. I have no idea how much, no apart from a reasonable guess, how much time has now elapsed since that fateful day with Alicia. I'm still inside a woman's body, just a different one.

I feel love. Laurie, my mother, is creating me and I am very aware of that fact; that I am transformed from a single fertilized egg into a small wriggling creature way up high inside my mother's tail with a very, very long way to go to the outside world, air, and daylight.

She will do anything to protect me. She shares her food, her water, her air with me.

Laurie has seven other "children", in that seven other lamia have left her body and are now part of the community. But all of these were human to begin with, making a relatively quick, easy transformation as my mother simply had to assert her own DNA and give these women time for their tails to develop. With me, she's starting almost from scratch; every bit of my substance except a tiny egg will be derived from what Laurie eats, food that Daisy and her family donated.

The only more "from scratch" this could have been is if Laurie and Daisy mated with each other and had no personality, no consciousness, to imbue their child with: if they had decided to make a baby with no starting point at all. This, I understand, is an exceedingly rare occurrence now - another way the world has been turned upside down since this all began. Just like they said it would.

I feel my own tail; slipping against the interior of my mother's reproductive tract, absorbing oxygen and nutrition as it does, before I think to ask: "Where... is Daisy?"

"You remember her name," my mother tells me, the first thing I hear in words like that.

"Of course," I reply.

"I wish I knew."

I hadn't considered that at all. That she would have to leave me behind.

I'd been thinking of this as the quick drop-off, the agreed transfer of genetic material such that Laurie could bring me back to life and give me a body that I've been enamored of; but to Laurie, Daisy is my other mother; her mate, her partner, and essentially, after what amounted to a one-night stand has left Laurie pregnant, a single-mother-to-be.

Turns out, something happened with Stacy. Laurie seems not to want to go into it but implied that she and Daisy were still together.

Something about Daisy needing to "find herself".

Laurie cried at this thought. She'd intended, apparently, for Daisy to join the Lamia, to follow me through her own reproductive canal and emerge as a snake-woman herself so she and Daisy and I, and apparently Stacy, could live out the next stretch of our lives together.

I did my mother her first favor, from inside her womb. I explained what happened to Daisy in as much detail as I could, using the store of memories that I had - both hers that I still possessed and my own. How she and Willow, the persona forcibly imposed on her by a Queen Bee, were inextricably commingled, and despite the physical elements beginning to fade her body was still a confused mess of human and avian and bee-girl that she dragged through just enough of a transformation to unload me, reasonably intact.

Now that I think back about it, I have no idea how she was able to summon the strength of personality to do even that, given what those...things had done to her so effectively over the last year and a half. Even with her strength, however, the recovery would be a slow process and she needed more help.

Laurie thinks she could have fixed that.

I knew that Daisy would return, once she'd sorted out whatever was going on within herself.

This made Laurie feel much better, but she thought Daisy would likely overestimate my gestation time. The longer a naga's tail the faster they can reproduce, and Laurie has rather a long tail and I am, at the moment, the only occupant within it. So I was going to see the outside world with my own eyes again pretty soon.

It was around this time that something went terribly wrong in the outside world. I felt a surge of adrenaline, of stress, of anger and sadness and fear.

Laurie insulated me from it at first, or tried to, sedating me so her stress wouldn't disrupt my ongoing development: by now I had an actual body, head and arms and tail and was developing a reproductive system of my own.

But I could still feel the pain, and so I insisted on knowing what was happening. Reluctantly, Laurie shared the news.

We'd been attacked. By the bee-girls.

One of Zoe's best friends was dead.

Laurie replayed the scene for me. Two bee-girls, who I immediately recognized as Queen's Guard, the Amazonian Warrior Princesses of the bee world, had come to deliver a message from the queen herself.

Seems that our territory, the lamia's, our magnificent, giant grassy field with rolling hills, was to be the site of a new colony of bee-girls.

They were not particularly elegant about delivering the message. Back near the barn, Zoe and her friends stood as the two giant bees pointed out the hilltop that would be the site of the newest hive.

This, of course, made no sense. The lamia's territory was just outside the bee-girls' own. There had been no plans to expand at all in the local area: I knew that the prior swarm, Jillian's, had gone to a location that was three days' travel away.

But that was the old plan. Daisy's, Jillian's, probably Aeris'. Now this hive was under new management.

Bambi.

Now it did make sense.

The square footage of the hive wasn't the problem nor the idea, of course. It was the fact that a hive would scare humans away. Every human that didn't flee would soon be made into a bee-girl, and the new hive would swell and grow and we'd find ourselves under the constant, buzzing, intimidating, supervision of creatures the lamia, and especially I, despised. No human would be able to reach us, ask to join our ranks; the bees would take them first.

This was a land grab. An indirect attempt to drive the lamia out. And, from the attitude of the bee-girls who visited and their queen, it seemed that they would be only too happy to make that a direct attempt should we stick around.

To be honest, I should have known that if Bambi became Queen, that would be something she'd do.

"And what if we refuse?"

"What are you going to do? Hiss us to death?"

When the bee-girl came closer, brandishing her stinger, Zoe tried to take a swat at her with her tail.

The other bee-girl went for Zoe in that instant, and in within a few seconds Zoe's best friend intervened and was stung right in the chest.

Laurie replayed that scene for me. The smile on the bee-girl's face as she pumped Zoe's friend full of her deadly venom.

"Soon, it won't be two of us," the other bee said. "It'll be thousands. If you'd like to stay, bee our guest, though."

Zoe was bent over her friend. "We have to leave," she said, crying. "They've won. We can't fight that."

That's when my mother came up alongside. "No," Laurie said. "They haven't. I've got what we need to defeat them once and for all."

. . .

There. Light.

Faint, distant, a pinkish, grey tunnel between here and there.

Okay, now, slowly, my mother told me. Try not to hurt me.

I'd never do that.

Just go slow.

I wriggled my body. My body is the shape of my mother's reproductive system, long and skinny, a human female body atop a snake's tail. I found the right rhythm: wriggling my tail made my mother's wriggle involuntarily. After each little move would come a wave of peristalsis, bringing that light nearer to me eyes until I can focus: I'm seeing the ground underneath my mother's tail, a bed that she has prepared with soft, dry straw for my arrival. The first light and glimpse of the outside world I have seen with eyes that are my own in...I don't know how long.

I hear soft voices. "She's almost here!"

Excited other voices relay the message. Laurie rests and waits and pushes and I squirm along with it. I'm looking through a slit-like opening, and I take my first breath: it's musky and earthy and humid but it's air, actual air, and though it's too tight in here to take a full breath I already appreciate it. First breath of the outside world with lungs that are my own.

"She's coming!" another voice.

"Give her some room, will you?" cries another.

Suddenly my mother repositions herself. Her tail coils against itself, forming a dome of sorts, a protective shield where I can be born with privacy. The end of her tail, where I am, is near the center of this coil, and she turns it to the side.

"Oh! Can't we see?" I hear one other lamia say.

"No," my mother says. I'm proud of her. She's got one good friend here she's letting watch, but keeping my birth from the prying eyes of the other lamia. With the show over, I hear most of them slither away to leave my mother, her friend, and I in peace.

Quiet. As my head emerges from my mother's tail it's the first thing I notice. For years (definitely over two, maybe as many as four or five, as I said I'm not sure) now I have lived within another woman's body, been a passenger in their uterus or their mind or both, and it's never, ever quiet. Breathing, heartbeat, the sounds of digestion and every other biological function have been carried straight to my ears from mere inches away and their sudden absence is startling.

The birth is not at all like a human birth. Three big pushes and my human half escapes my mother's tail, but my entire tail is still inside. We rest, at look at the spectacle that is us, one human head at each end. Slowly I work myself out and it feels like we, collectively, are growing longer. Finally only the tip of my tail remains inside, and as I take a deep breath Laurie lifts my tail and I am, at last, completely separate: the youngest, newest member of the lamia community. I am sopping wet and can do nothing but breathe as my mother's tail, slit still wide open, continues to drip fluid all over me. As I watch, that slit narrows, closes, vanishes, and only then does Laurie allow a little light and air through, as she reconfigures to place her human half inside her own coils with me.

"Welcome, Francesca." She runs her hands over my wet, slippery body, the immature scales of my short tail, my wet, slick hair pasted to my skin.

"Thank you," I whisper.

"Rest for a few minutes," she said.

I did.

"Ready to meet your new community, Francesca?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

She lets more light in a little at a time, and then stretches her coils out, forming a gradually-expanding opening that looks upward to the sky.

Blue sky. I haven't seen such a sky in so, so long, when not filtered through another's eyes, through her thoughts. It's...beautiful. Is this..what it's like to behold the world for almost the first time again? Wonderful.

Faces pop over the coils. Other naga, being permitted to see the newest member of the community for the first time.

"She's beautiful," several of them say.

"Thank you," Laurie answers.

After that last onlooker has gone: she whispers, to nobody in particular: "She may just be the one to save us all."

She's right.

Well, as much as I can do, anyway. I love her. I always will, and I swore right then I'd do anything to protect her and my new family.

. . .

As soon as it feels safe to do so, I use my newfound skills of locomotion to glide through the grassy field, almost three-quarters of a mile to the very hilltop where the bee-girls want to locate their new hive. My trip has nothing to do with that, though. I just want to be alone, for the first time in so, so long. My mind, a fully sovereign entity itself once again, unattached to anyone. After so long of that not being the case...this feeling is so different.

My mother understands. My sisters. My cousins. I've told them my story - all of it, which is pretty shocking to them, even by the standards of today where there are transformations and unbirthing and birth going on all around us all the time. I'm gratified that they feel I've been through a lot - Im damned sure that I know that's true.

On the hilltop, I take a deep breath of the summer air. I'm alone.

I could decide to glide away down the other side of this hill right now, never to return, and nobody could stop me from doing so. I have my own body, the gift of actual solid matter, and every cubic centimeter of it is under my control and my control alone, for the first time in years. I can blink my eyes and run my fingers through my hair and actually feel it, not someone else's interpretation of those feelings. I'm not at the mercy of anyone's memory or ovaries or womb, not dependent on anyone to breathe or eat or drink for me - even if they want to keep me going.

I am alive. More so than I've ever been.

I have short dark hair I plan to grow out, a cute red top that Laurie bought for me, darkish green and teal scales all the way down to the tip of my tail. Oh, yes. I've got a tail. Now that I have it I think I've always wanted one, from the moment I knew it was a possibility: I can curl it up next to me and run my hands over it like it's a warm, friendly pet snake. I can use it like a pillow when I sleep, or coil it around myself.

For a few minutes, I watch down from the hilltop to where my extended family plays. They're doing just that right now, getting some exercise and enjoying the same afternoon as I. I'm proud of them, of my new species, of what they've done.

The most interesting change to the world since Daisy's 6.0 invention is accommodations. From Daisy herself to her baby-dragon sister Clarisse, from the delicate fairy princesses to the centaurs and now undersea creatures, the one thing that's had to change is living arrangements. Human furniture, doorways, kitchens, and so on only tend to work well for humans. So I was surprised to find that what used to be a big, empty "barn" has been completely renovated in the time I've been gone. Since my sisters and cousins come from all walks of life, we've got designers and architects and engineers and builders, and the place is absolutely amazing. It's a bit crowded at the moment, as the second "barn" under construction isn't finished yet, but if I put in my fair share of work I'll have my own apartment with gardens and a kitchen and a view of the outside world. We have a shared common room and technology and electricity and air conditioning, sort of.

It doesn't look like human accommodations at all and I'm glad for that. My cousins invented a surface which I can only describe as Teflon indoor-outdoor carpeting: it's short but very smooth and super-easy to glide across. Rather than elevators there are ramps and spirals that are very easy to climb or descend when you can just glide around them. There are suspended posts and loops that you can glide over to and wrap around to bridge long distances, get some exercise and maintain your agility.

It's wonderful. Like I said, a little crowded at the moment, but we're working on that.
For now, I have a least a space to coil up and keep the rain off of me.

And now I know that space has soon to be defended, and I'm ready for that too.

Okay, world. I'm ready for you.
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Re: Greetings from Jessica's vagina! AMA!

Postby dreamweevil » Wed Jun 21, 2017 10:14 pm

LittleBeast wrote:Wow. I just discovered this, and it's a hell of a ride.

Rob Francesca, congratulations on finally getting a body. (I just hope they're not premature.) And Daisy, I'd like to thank you for being such an amazing and wonderful person.

I have a few thoughts and questions, and while this might not be the best time, I figure I'll throw them out there for you to respond to whenever you're ready.

Most important is probably the concern I have over memetic infection. We've already maybe seen this in both Alicia and the bee girls; it seems to me that in a "meeting of the minds", the idea that prevails is not necessarily the best or most right one, but the strongest; of course any idea predicated on falsehoods is weaker than one that isn't, but it seems that strong emotions or biological urges can overpower moral certainties. This, I believe, is why Alicia was able to convince nearly everyone that what she was doing to Rob was right, even though from an outside perspective her actions were clearly terrible. It shows even more clearly when Cerys enters the picture; she's easily convinced that Alicia "just needs to be loved" (does! not! excuse! rape! and! kidnapping!) and we can even see Alicia and Casey force Cerys to change her mind about what to do with Rob. As long as the "horizon" keeps people relatively stable, that's a problem but only a small one; but if a dangerous meme becomes strong enough to chain from one person to the next, it could become a very, very big problem very quickly.

Unfortunately, I have no solution to offer for this, not even the start of one. The only thing I can offer is to limit connecting as a preventative measure, which probably wouldn't even help that much if such a meme arose.


Dreamweevil: I'll take this myself since Daisy and Francesca have both been busy and you shouldn't have to wait for an answer! First of all, thanks for the comments and glad you're enjoying it! It's been a fun collaborative effort (bigmacrmuk has had quite a lot of input, that Groblek wrote his own story that's coming up shortly -- it's also in his gallery if you'd like to see it early.)

We've had a few cases of the kind of memetic infection you're talking about. If your thoughts can be made real (with a little work) in this world, and thoughts can be communicated very easily, then dangerous ideas can spread too and become "real". The battle is less physical and more mental: Alicia swallows people only after she convinces them that they want to be swallowed. Unfortunately for her victims, she's been very good at that. The bee-girls have taken that up a notch, no doubt.

Daisy's big bet is that, by taking the leash off of everyone, things will be chaotic for a time but goodness and kindness will prevail.

Ah well. On to other, more theoretical and potentially fun things.

First here is that it seems to me the shrinking power has been underutilized. I may have gotten some of the details wrong, but as I understand it, the majority of the shrunken mass doesn't effect the outside world, yes? Why not, then, have an extra organ created which stores large amounts of shrunken mass as reserves for transformations? (unless the shrinking process, for some bizarre reason, requires a consenting mind in the shrunken mass - obviously it would then be difficult to utilize generally.) I understand that storing highly shrunken mass can be uncomfortable but I'm sure that could be designed out, and the potential usefulness, especially if quicker transformations become feasible, could be pretty great. (and even without - think how much easier it would be to shift back from, say, a centaur. Not to mention the lack of worry over caloric intake.)


Great question. The shrinking effect might be better termed a scaling effect: adjusting the scale (in 3D space) of one thing relative to everything around it. It's necessarily temporary and requires some maintenance (energy): not only does there need to be a well-defined boundary between the (person) who's been shrunk and the rest of the universe, but there has to be ongoing transformations through that boundary. If all your matter was scaled down to 1/20 normal size, the atoms in the air molecules you need in order to breathe are now twenty times too large to interact with you!

Effectively, the shrinking effect is an illusion of spacetime that just happens to work mathematically only if it's unwound at some other point to put things back in balance again... similar to the way that you can solve problems using imaginary numbers. It requires the consent of the person being shrunk: as Dean found out, it only worked because Jessica convinced him that it would. The other thing that's important is proximity: just like it's difficult to compare sizes of two things that are far apart, it's hard to maintain the size difference when two things are far apart. Tucking a shrunken man into your (normally sized) vagina makes it much easier to maintain that "shrunken" arrangement because of the near-zero distances involved and the constant reminder of that size difference.

There's also the potential for a person to shrink their entire self roughly permanently (refreshing it every few days I suppose) in order to take very small forms (like faeries), which I presume isn't currently possible due to brain size concerns. But then, you seem to have no problem with overstuffing a regular-sized brain, so perhaps it's not an issue after all.

I have no idea if either of these is feasible, since I don't really understand even the first thing about how the shrinking works. But if they are, they could increase people's options dramatically.


True that this has been underutilized lately. I think the idea is that, since maintaining the "shrinking field" is a chore, if you can acheive a given size through "normal" means, it's quite preferable. People haven't begun to experiment with radically different sizes quite yet but there's no reason one couldn't design a brain that works just as well as a human brain but is substantially smaller: we just haven't seen such a thing quite yet. It'd be far easier (if slower) to do this than to shrink yourself and stay that way for any length of time.

The other thing, which may be a bit out in the land of dubcon, but... Would it be possible to "uplift" an animal with Humanity 6.0? Because that seems like something that would be interesting to see, and I'm sure many people would want to do that for their pets.
(For that matter, I bet there's some people who have transformed themselves to fully animal forms by now.)


So far all the body plans we've seen have been hybrids, but Daisy was very clear that anyone can become anything that's biologically viable. This means that there will certainly be "people" that are completely indistinguishable from animals once anyone is willing to attempt it. The risk for a human is that of the unknown: If I turn myself into a lion, and really push myself too far in that direction, will I start to think like a lion? Will I forget the way back and lose any interest (or the knowledge) necessary to escape that form?

We haven't looked at (native) animal/human hybrids yet either. Is is possible to form a mental connection with an animal to learn what they're thinking? Would it be interesting or just so simple and mechanical that we'd find our family dog's thoughts rather boring? Does an animal have enough smarts to set up their end of the connection? Would they want to communicate with us? There's probably very few willing to attempt to find out (and put their own sanity at risk).
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Re: Greetings from Jessica's vagina! AMA!

Postby LittleBeast » Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:33 am

I kind of wanted to plant the ideas in actual characters' heads but that's ok

I think you misunderstood what I meant with the shrinking, though. My point was, instead of shrinking a person, what if you just shrank, say, a big blob of fat? Then you have a reserve of body mass that you could later use to facilitate a transformation into something larger without having to eat quite so much at the time. (Or, perhaps more to the point, you could use it to make yourself smaller without shedding all the excess matter, instead storing it.)

((And yeah, Groblek's story is what led me here, I don't really frequent the forums.))
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Re: Greetings from Jessica's vagina! AMA!

Postby dreamweevil » Thu Jun 22, 2017 6:45 am

LittleBeast wrote:I kind of wanted to plant the ideas in actual characters' heads but that's ok


Belle: Don't worry, we've already seen it, and Daisy and Francesca will too once things settle down!

I think you misunderstood what I meant with the shrinking, though. My point was, instead of shrinking a person, what if you just shrank, say, a big blob of fat? Then you have a reserve of body mass that you could later use to facilitate a transformation into something larger without having to eat quite so much at the time. (Or, perhaps more to the point, you could use it to make yourself smaller without shedding all the excess matter, instead storing it.)


I'll take this one. Nice hearing from you! I was about to give you a bunch of reasons why this wouldn't work, but... if my little sister's taught me anything, it's that very little is impossible if you are willing to put the work into it. My initial resistance is that shrinking anything requires constantly maintaining a boundary, and I could no sooner slice that boundary through myself than you could, say, cut your own arm off. If that means that a transformation takes longer than it otherwise might... well, I'm in no particular hurry.

I read Pamela's story about becoming the first centaur... a process she must certainly be finished with by now; it'd be nice to hear from her and her troupe. She's absolutely going through it the "hard way", but I get it: she needs to grow into her new body as it grows. She needs to figure out how to walk on four legs, how to control her tail and her new reproductive system, and get comfortable with her new self. Yes, her growth is limited by how much food she can eat, but it's also throttled by the fact that she's a pioneer-- with no "mother" to protect her new body as it forms, or to teach her what it means to be a centaur.

Even though there wasn't as much of a size factor involved, my sister Daisy went through much of the same thing, and that wasn't quick either. She had to learn how to control her wings, and then she spent weeks in our backyard teaching herself how to fly, and made tiny changes to her body plan to make that work more easily. Of course she tried to rush it, get herself into the air before all her feathers were in... I bandaged up my share of skinned, bruised, grass-stained elbows and knees while that was going on! Then she went and got herself... oh... I can't go through that agony again. I just hope she gets back soon this time.

I do see that the shrinking ability might be used in a different and creative way, even though it seems that using that ability has fallen out of favor at the moment. Early on there was a lot of consensual shrinking of people. Not too long after the secret was out, millions of men made that trip voluntarily, disappearing into their wives' or girlfriends' bodies. Now we're at the point where most who wanted that transformation have already gotten it, and the current rage, thanks to Daisy, is to invent interesting new races of creatures. Given what happened with the bee-girls, IMHO, the slower this happens... the better.

We humans will be a minority soon, I'm sure.

For now, I've been happy to sit this out and watch. Sort of. I dread looking out that back window these days: Clarisse is going to give me a heart attack. While the "baby" dragon was cute, a teenage dragon...

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46: Chloe

Postby dreamweevil » Fri Jun 23, 2017 3:25 pm

Francesca: After a certain amount of discussion, the Lamia have decided to stay put. I'm really glad for that: if the only reason that I'm here right now is to put an end to the bee-girls' reign of terror, if that's my purpose in life, so be it. As such, I had absolutely no objections when my mother raided my extensive inside knowledge of the bee-girls: that, and to some extent I, are now the lamias' secret weapon. After so much time in the Hive and out there with Daisy I had an absolute treasure trove of knowledge: physiological makeup, numerical strength, patrol patterns specific weaknesses...the whole shooting match. Knowledge is power, and I was well-armed.

I was immediately invited to the planning meetings. I knew how quickly the bee-girls could reproduce, and as such if Queen Bambi was driving her colony to do just that - at the expense of ravaging the remaining human population in her territory - with a certain amount of creative mathematics, I then knew to within a few days about when the hive would reach the point where it would swarm. On that day, indeed, over a thousand bee-girls would darken the skies above us, descend upon us, drive us from the chosen hilltop where her Engineers would begin constructing new quarters, for a new Queen that would almost immediately begin laying new eggs to make new bee-girls.

I also knew that Bambi, because of her own headstrong and malicious nature, was predictable. She would send at least two Scouts ahead to see that we were out of the way, and to give us one last warning.

So, when not eating or sleeping I took hours upon end watching the skies, waiting for that signal. Particularly early in the morning. Not just from the direction in which they were likely to head, but from behind, to all sides. They'd have little need for stealth but the bee-girls were clever, sometimes deceptive. Bambi was predictable but her scouts and guard might not be. They had a certain amount of free will, after all.

Despite the fact that all of the Lamia now understood the bees' weaknesses as much as I did, I wanted to be right up front and centre when they arrived. My tail may be short and I may still be "young", only recently learning how to propel my body across our varied terrain, but I was driven to do this, to be the one standing between the bee-girls and whatever it was that they wanted. While my mother feared for me and tried to talk me out of a hero, the rest of my extended family welcomed it. I was going to be fierce. This was more than just protecting the beings that had welcomed me and made me one of theirs.

This was about what had happened to Daisy. This was personal.

My biggest worry was that one of the attacking bee-girls would be Daisy's friends, ones that she had gotten close to her in time at the Hive. But I'd already made up my decision: even one of them, even Amanda or Lisa or Violet or Janiss or whoever would not - could not - be spared my wrath should they be the ones sent for one last round of intimidation. There was simply too much at stake.

My second biggest worry was that there would be no warning at all: just the swarm itself, a massive, overwhelming number of bee-girls, well over a thousand. There were only two hundred eighty of us. Even with everything I had told the lamia...those were not good odds.

Thankfully, neither of these worries came true, and Bambi played her next hand pretty much exactly as I'd thought she would.

Mid-morning, the same two bee-girls, both Queen's Guard, flew over our horizon, eventually hovering at the point they'd chosen for the new hive.

Zoe and I approached.

"I see you've elected to remain here," the first bee said.

"You killed my friend," Zoe said.

"An unfortunate situation," the bee responded. "I'd much rather have swallowed her alive, but you have no value to us that way. If you leave, you'll be safe. What have you here, but an empty field and an old barn?"

"It's our home," Zoe said.

I wanted to say something. Something to prick the pomposity, the sheer arrogance of these bee-girls. But saying what I knew, showing my hand...that wouldn't serve any useful purpose. What would, however was my slowly reaching my tail through the grass underneath one of the bees. Weakness number one: the bees' wings are loud; usually, so loud that they can't hear things below a certain amplitude, particularly when their wings are between their ears and the source of the sound.

Zoe is watching me. She starts to do the same thing to the other bee-girl. Two more lamia approach.

The bees are being clever-- not landing, not putting themselves in danger. But I've been training, and training the other lamia. I'm on a hair trigger. I know the time to strike. I'm ready.

One of the two curls her tail, stinger pointed at Zoe.

I keep an eye on the bee-girl's pretty, hot-violet eyes. If she decides to strike, her eyes will give her away.

"It's our home now," the other bee-girl answers.

"When is the swarm?" Zoe asks.

"For all you know, we're on our way right now."

I shake my head. Not possible: it's too early. Bambi doesn't have enough troops yet. She's probably laid enough eggs for the swarm by now, but those eggs still need time to hatch. She's invariably depleted her Engineers to build her army of higher-ranked, dangerous bees, and needs new Engineers to build the new hive.

I give a smile, deciding to show at least a little of my hand. "You're bluffing. And everyone here knows it. And your days of bluffing and issuing threats are over." My smile grows a little wider.

The bee-girl taking aim at Zoe flinches. I don't wait. With all my effort, I whip my tail up from the grass, and wrap it around the bee girl between her human and bee halves, pinning her wings.

I wish my tail was just a little longer. The bee tries to sting but I keep her away from my human half. This was the second secret weakness: only the stinger is dangerous, but it's made of keratin, the same stuff as hair or fingernails, and as long as she can't reach our human skin, our scales are more than enough armor to protect us. Without her wings, the bee-girl immediately falls down into the grass, writhing and squirming. I only grip her that much tighter, winding coils around expertly. She's thrashing with her stinger, desperately trying to find soft flesh to sink it into.

The other bee tries to soar away, but but my sister, Suzie saw what I did, and repeated it. Fortunately her tail was long enough to catch the bee-girl much higher in the air than I could have reached: the bee-girl spun in place as Suzie wrapped several coils around her. By accident, this bee came almost close enough to Zoe to get a quick sting in, but Suzie yanked her away and held her, mid air, at a safe distance.

I haven't enough tail left to reach the girl's head, but Zoe knew what I intended. She put her tail atop my own and sweeps up up the girl's back, over her head, where we hear two delicate snaps as Zoe breaks the girl's antennae. The bee-girl screams, but none of the other bee-girls will hear it now: this one is officially "off the air" - another key part of neutralising a bee-girl. Suzie did the same the the bee she'd caught. Zoe lifts herself up to get a better view, coils herself around the bee's tail section, and with the tip of her own tail puts sideways pressure on the bee-girl's stinger, until that snaps too. Suzie does the same with the bee she caught.

"That worked," Zoe says, breathless from the confrontation. "Go for it."

"Excellent," Suzie says. I can't move with the bee in my grip, so Suzie turns to show me what's happening. She brings the bee-girl face to face with her, and pulls the bee in close, pressing her bosom into the bee's own chest. Just in the way she's been taught.

"You're not the only one with venom," Suzie explains. The bee cries out as Suzie injects her with the aforementioned venom. Then a slit begins to appear, below Suzie's belly button. Suzie backs her bee away so she can see what's happening, and the bee cries out: "No!"

"You can't fit her in...?" I say.

"Sure I can," Suzie says, confidently. "So can you. Just try it."

I sit up, suspending myself on my tail somehow despite most of it still wrapping the bee-girl. I bring her up to me and take a good look at her. She's cute, but her eyes have a mean streak to them. I bring her up face to face, and then press her against myself. She doesn't like this; she's still wriggling.

I press my nipples into her, right through the fabric of my shirt.

"What's your name?"

"Chloe. Please-- I didn't mean to--"

I shake my head. "Pity? Mercy? You chase desperate humans for food or new recruits - or at least part of them anyway...you come here and threaten my people with exile and death...and then you ask me for pity?"

I tighten my grip a little. "Tell me...where was your pity the last time, every time, someone begged you not to sting them and take them?"

"It's not pity! We take them to show them a better life! Some people just don't understand how wonderful it is to be one of us until they can see it for themselves!"

I didn't need to hear any more of Chloe's desperate rationalizations. I pulled her tight to myself and focused on my chest until I felt the hiss of the venom leaving my body and entering hers. It would stop the violent thrashing. Since I hadn't broken her wings, the venom would also prevent her from coordinating herself enough to use them, should she somehow escape me.

Chloe looked drugged now, because, well, she was.

Zoe watched me as Suzie began to consume the bee-girl she'd caught. It immediately recalled the scene that occurred dozens of times per day in the Hive, in the Hunters' Lodge. And I should have had a problem with it, but right now, I didn't. All I felt was righteous anger. Justice. Punishment.

"Go ahead, honey," Zoe encouraged. "She's all yours."

I held Chloe tight in my single coil but no longer against my human body. I looked down. Venom still dripped from her tail, where her stinger used to be. My body was sweaty.

To open my vaginal entrance is akin to a human woman spreading her legs: it's pretty much the same muscles. This entrance is just below my waist, invisible when closed.

To be honest, I feel evil, delightfully evil, and too young to be doing this, but I do it anyway. The sight of that opening appearing on a lamia's body means exactly one thing. Someone's about to get swallowed.

The fear in Chloe's eyes is enough to give me second thoughts until I remember exactly why I'm doing this. Though she might be deserving of it, I have other plans for her.

I'm not going to kill her.

"No...!" Chloe yells.

I say nothing. I slowly turn her horizontally, lower her down, and prepare to insert her into myself head-first.

"She's too big," I say, pointing at the bee-girl's huge tail section.

"No, she isn't," Suzie informs. "Trust me."

I can smell my own warmth, a soft, feminine moistness that's supposed to be inviting, apparently.

I still don't believe Zoe or Suzie. She's going to get stuck halfway. With her tail, Zoe gently guided me. I now had four of my cousins watching me as we did something we'd never done before.

Removed two bee-girls - Queens Guard, no less - from the world.

Chloe got one more shriek, and a gasp, out of herself before I pushed her head into myself. Since my tail wasn't long enough to reposition without losing its grip on Chloe, one of the other lamia held her tight for a moment. Swallowing her felt like you'd imagine: delicious, delightful, sensuous. Her struggles only made me want her that much more, and from my vantage point I got to watch her smooth skin slip into my opening, moisture dripping from me to lubricate her entrance.

"She's going to suffocate!" I cried.

"No, she won't. Just keep going. Enjoy it."

Ever since Alicia had taken me in using her own vagina, this had been something I feared. To be taken in, consumed...just as she had done to me. But, now...to be on the other end, to feel that power over another...I understood something about what her and Cerys had said about the rush. About that feeling of absolute control. It was...heady.

But, at the same time, I knew how easy it was to let that power and control consume you as well. I had seen it happen. That wasn't going to happen to me.

I watched Chloe's rear end disappear into my entrance. Her legs seemed impossibly long and I actively ignored her huge bee-tail, pretended it didn't exist. I wriggled and found it worked; Chloe was slipping down, into my tail, still struggling to back out of me but unable to coordinate herself in that way; a reflex arrangement would tighten my muscles automatically with each attempt to escape, and then loosen to allow her to slide further in.

Now all that remains outside me is a pair of human legs and a bee-girl tail that dwarfs any human. The tail is large enough to swallow a human being, and perhaps even me, the size I am now. As I start to work myself over this, as the stripes of Chloe's tail vanish, one by one, she opens that slit near where her stinger used to be, as if to intimidate me.

That opening could have swallowed me just as well as mine is now swallowing her.

Okay, point very much taken. But I've won this battle, Chloe.

I reached the halfway point of her tail section. By now I was up off the ground by a full body length, precariously balanced so that gravity would draw Chloe down into me. My body would partially digest her the way she would have digested me.

"You've used a package of chemicals that allow her to survive anaerobically," Laurie explained. "Any minute know that will reverse and you'll feel absolutely out of air as you re-oxygenate her body. It'll feel like you're about to die, but you're fine. Just breathe; you just need to collect oxygen from the air to repay the oxygen debt. Okay?"

"Okay," I say, mostly understanding.

I'm beyond the halfway point. I can't believe how large my opening has gotten: enough to encircle the widest part of a Queen's Guard's tail section and her legs at the same time and it still doesn't hurt. Now, with the hardest part done, she started to slip down and in, and I was ready to seal her up inside myself.

Just about the time this happened, the out-of-breath sensation that Laurie warned of happened. Laurie saw it on my face and just reminded "Breathe."

I felt, exactly as she described, that I couldn't get enough air. I was breathing for well more than two. I just focused on that rhythm: in, out, in... until the sensation passed. I was still breathing heavily, but that's apparently quite normal. I looked down and saw my slit vanish. I reached down; ran my hand over the expanse of green scales, no evidence at all of the opening that had just consumed Chloe. I was uncomfortably full, to be sure. That sensation passed another minute later, and finally I felt like I could rest.

"Now what?"

"Whatever you want," Laurie said, soothingly. The several other lamia who'd been watching me, including Zoe, glided away, since there'd be nothing else to see for a while.

"You could turn her into one of us, with a lot of substance left over for yourself, I suspect. You can turn her into anything, actually, since you've got the 6.0 genetics package. Or you can turn her into nothing at all-- absorb her completely into yourself. It's entirely up to you, Francesca. Spend some time with her now and decide. Once your decision is made, your body will take it from there."

Spend some time with her?

Oh. That. I already had the mental connection with my captive bee-girl, I just hadn't thought to use it.

As you might expect, Chloe was a struggling, confused mess. A Queen's Guard member who'd failed at her mission and now had no purpose at all. My mind cut through her thoughts like butter: she couldn't coordinate any kind of defense. I had a certain amount of experience with such things communicating with Alicia and later Daisy, after all. Thoughts, memories...all open to me.

Aha. First thing in her mind, standing out like a firework. Very useful. I knew it to within a few days but...

I immediately called Zoe back. "Zoe!!"

"What is it, Francesca?"

"I know the precise date of the swarm."

No! Chloe cried. The Queen would kill me!

I gave the date to Zoe, who smiled. I knew Bambi wouldn't change this date merely for the loss of two worker bees; too much would already be in place. Vital intelligence was now ours.

Then perhaps you should be thankful that you're safe from the Queen, now, Chloe.

Diving into Chloe's thoughts again I felt myself from the inside. Warm, elastic, dark, and very wet.

I could see Chloe's genetics right away as her body began to dissolve, just a bit, inside my own. I coiled around myself, next to Suzie, and we both went to work on our captives: quietly, together. The genetics were as I expected: a chain of different linked blocks, each with its own encryption key; these would be the different ranks, from Guard and on up. All of Chloe's were unlocked already except for the last two.

My forehead creased for a moment. Two?

Chloe was a member of the Queen's Guard. So her next promotion was to that of Queen.

So...what's left after that?

I couldn't even examine the last block without unlocking the second-to-last. My reproductive system went to work on this, sequencing Chloe's DNA with an intent to preserve as much of her as I thought necessary. As I said, I wasnt interested in flat-out killing her, nor even taking over her identity - I thought it important to maintain that distinction.

I got the feeling that the last block contained something very important and didn't want to just eradicate it: a good part of Chloe's personality was, as I knew from Daisy, still locked away. I needed to preserve that to give her freedom and her own life back.

I had to discover the key that would have transformed Chloe into a Queen Bee. So I set about doing exactly that, discussing and comparing my results with Suzie's as I went. Fortunately, I could use part of my thesis on quantum encryption, which simplified the math quite a bit: I figured that Bambi wouldn't have gone overboard on this, and that Aeris may not have done so in the initial case either - after all, they wouldn't expect to have someone escape with knowlwedge of quantum encryption, would they?

Chloe continued to struggle and fight against me.

Finally, after two days, the key came to me and I asked my ovaries to synthesize it as a test. It worked. I now had access to the penultimate level of her memories and DNA.

Unlocking the second-to-last part of Chloe's DNA at first seemed to be a terrible mistake, as even within me I felt the absolute terror of a Queen Bee come to life.

Now you've done it, snake-girl! Thank you so much!

I could feel the bee-girl-turned-queen-bee trying to activate her own ovaries. I'm going to lay hundreds of eggs inside you!

Wait, Chloe, no! I really wouldn't do that... My own words were measured, but calm.

Yes! You'll be spitting out bee-larvae in no time and won't be able to stop the process! The Queen will be so happy with me!

I could afford to be calm in my words, as I knew Chloe was delusional. Yes, she'd try to protect her offspring with her own encryption but I already had to the key to it. I saw her vision of me running pointlessly away as my body spewed forth bee after bee, but I owned the energy consumption for that entire process now and there's no way I'd let that happen. I definitely wasn't going to give Chloe enough energy to reproduce herself. I had control over every aspect of what she did.

But, at the same time, I wanted her to live.

Chloe, don't try, for your own sake. I would not be hurt by what you want to try, but the effort would almost certainly kill you. Just wait, please...I'm working on something else.

Chloe ignored me. This answered for me a question that I'd been pondering since Daisy won the Games. The bee-girls' lives are pretty much on rails from the moment they hatch: I remember Daisy admiring this, that life was simple and orderly and had a clear progression, a clear purpose at each stage. My observation, aside from distaste at the blatant lack of free will: This applied to the Queen Bee too. Driven to reproduce, without quite as much self-determination as Daisy or Jillian thought they'd get.

I had been right. If Daisy had become the Queen, the same thing would have happened to her. Prisoner of her own biological imperative.

Ye Gods...I had come so close to losing it all. Thank you for being there, Belle.

So I redoubled my efforts to find the answer: what, if anything, existed beyond the rank of Queen Bee? Why the one last encrypted block? And who, among the bees, would have held this key?

The keying strategy they use is clever, no doubt. Until one reaches the rank of Queen's Guard, each promotion can only be granted by a bee two ranks higher than yourself. This pattern changes at Queen's Guard as there are no longer two higher ranks available. So..how to unlock it?

I worked this out on paper, on a computer, and with several of my sisters, who seemed fascinated with my thesis, until I found a pattern in the data. It was amazing to work on a problem like this again - with my own mind and my own body, doing the work I knew how to do after so long, the memories of my thesis still there. It was...exhilarating.

After a little time, I found out that Bambi had two sets of keys: one from Aeris and her own. The hive, at least temporarily, was divided based on who each bee's mother was: Aeris or Bambi, with Bambi having been given Aeris' key.

Bambi had used the first letters of childhood nursery rhymes as her mnemonic for the key, even though the key itself would be woven into her so tightly that she'd never be able to forget it if she tried.

A Queen Bee would know the key to her own, final, encrypted block, to allow her access to all her own memories. I hadn't thought of this, but as soon as I worked out the final key for myself I raided Chloe's thoughts and found the same key there, right in her memory, right out in the open.

One thing to do first. In the Queen Bee stage, Chloe would remember who she used to be. So I just asked her to remember that.

"But--" Chloe objected.

"I'm sorry to deprive you of the full Bee Girl Experience, Chloe," I said, feeling a strange, motherly gentleness to a bee-girl who, just hours ago, I'd have been happy to dissolve away into nothingness. "But you're going to be free."

Consuming you would make me into the same kind of creature I refuse to become. That's the difference between us and you, Chloe.

I come across a particular memory, and show it to her, in the same way I did to Daisy. "This would be part of it. Now...remember."

She remembers one of Bambi's hunters chasing her down. She remembers a name. Madeleine. She remembers watching her husband being stung and carried off just before she felt the inevitable sting in her right leg, of a strong bee-girl wrapping her arms around her and lifting her into the sky.

It wasn't a surprise. Her husband, Peter, had believed that becoming a Bee was inevitable. He'd gone outside during peak Bee Time knowing what was likely to happen. She'd chased after him: if she was going to have that fate, so would she: so she chased and the bees came for them both.

She was merged with her husband within Bambi's womb.

Exactly as she wanted to be.

She'd been given purpose. Community. A future.

In short, she'd wanted this. Yes, she was carrying out Bambi's orders, threatening us as she had. But she was joined with her life-partner, her husband, in a more intimate way than she thought possible.

I sighed. But she had never asked anyone else if they'd wanted it too.

I pushed the mental button to inject Chloe with the remaining key, and watched as the last block untangled itself and became clear.

Just like that, Chloe was free. It's what I thought that Aeris and Mary had likely designed: the remainder of Chloe's potential, the 6.0 genetic core, the ability to change herself and be her own boss, was right there all along. Of course Aeris and Mary wanted that ability to be still extant, for their own benefit as much as anyone elses; Mary had already gone to...someplace, and Aeris had likely changed and done the same by now. So that information remained available...accessible to most any bee-girl.

The drive to reproduce faded: the massive bee-ovaries that Chloe had been winding up suddenly went dormant. Chloe's entire memory, and that of her husband's, were unlocked.

"What... have I done?" Chloe asked.

"Ssh, little one. You've been through quite a bit. Just relax and let me take care of you now. Here."

I called on my own ovaries to do their thing. Chloe, still in shock, just let it happen, let my naga DNA replace her own. If she was willing to become my child, I was willing to have her.

My body still has quite a bit to digest. I let my mother, Laurie, know what I'd done. She laughed: "Grandmother already!". She ran her fingers through my hair; I love it when she does that.

"I will have no such kindness for Bambi," I cautioned my daughter-to-be. "She did this to you, just like Aeris herself did it to Daisy. And that must be repaid."

"I understand," Chloe said.
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dreamweevil
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47: The Swarm

Postby dreamweevil » Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:53 am

Francesca: "Okay, Chloe, this is it."

I can tell that Chloe's scared. I don't want her to be. The former bee-girl, the very one who most cruelly sank her stinger into Zoe's best friend Linda and poisoned her to "death", is now my daughter and I can't escape the reality that, now that she is mine, I would do absolutely anything to protect her. I love her.

Which makes this, giving birth to her now, in the middle of the night, the eve of The Swarm, one of the hardest things I've ever done.

To protect my daughter, I'm going to have to leave her. She'll be in the care of my sister and best friend, Suzie, whose coils are entirely entwined with mine as I move my daughter towards the real world.

Another push and I feel the slit at the end of my tail open even further.

"I still don't see anything," Chloe informs me.

"You won't. It's very dark out."

The tradition is that nagas are born outside, under the stars, and usually under the protective coils of their mothers (and quite often a helper or two). We trample down a nice circle in the grass, clear it of any other animals or pests, settle in and do our thing. It's not a very messy process, but nor is it completely clean, and while it might be safer and more comfortable to give birth indoors, it's also inconsiderate of my fellow nagas who might be trying to sleep. Tonight, of all nights, with what comes tomorrow... they need their sleep.

I bring my head up close to my tail. I push again, have Chloe wriggle, and, deep inside myself, I see her. I know exactly what she looks like, from the top of her head to the end of her tail...but this is the first time I'll have seen her in the physical world, in her lamia form. I want the first two things she sees to be the stars, and me, but she'll have to settle for me: it's mostly cloudy out tonight and there are few stars visible and no moon.

Suzie informs me that it's harder to give birth when you watch yourself this way. She's right. I move away a bit, look down the length of my body, the smooth expanse of tail with the lump that is Chloe near the end, and just imagine myself pooping Chloe out of me, and just like that it works. Hardly the painful difficult labor that human women used to have (and it really is rare now, apparently). I had to actually work to stop myself from actually squirting her completely out of myself: I wanted to see her while I could still feel part of my daughter still inside me.

Suzie immediately passed the word along to the twenty-nine other naga that lay waiting nearby.

I dived immediately inside my coils to see my daughter. She looked very much like she did before: the same face, hair, body. I tested myself, trying to see her as the bee-girl, but it proved impossible. We smiled at each other, I combed my fingers through her wet hair, then sat up straight and extruded the rest of my daughter from myself with deliberate elegance.

"I wish you could stay," Chloe immediately said. I already missed her; the presence of her inside me, and though our tails were touching, and I stalled that moment as long as I could, Suzie finally nodded at the twenty-nine waiting volunteers. It was time to get things done.

"Please... don't get hurt," Suzie said. "After all this."

"We've trained for it. I'll hurry back. You won't miss me."

"Come on, Chloe," Suzie said. "We have to get you to safety."

Suzie looked at me with some sadness.

"I'm sorry," I told our fearless leader, Zoe, hoping that the birth hadn't held the timetable up.

I checked my tail; my vent had closed properly, my first daughter's birth complete, and I was ready to go. Though I was leaving my first daughter behind, I was ready for action. Decisive action that meant she would grow up in a place that was safe.

The thirty of us headed out, under the cover of darkness, down streets and yards in single file, inhumanly quiet. As we got into the city we wound ourselves through alleys and tight spaces and over fences like we were a single animal, each of us ready to dive into the protective coils of the one in front of us at a moments notice, should Bambi think of doing some last minute scouting before sending the swarm.

When we got to a designated point we split into two groups: four volunteers heading north, and the other twenty-six of us heading east. Finally we reached our staging areas, both groups just out of sight of The Hive, the twenty-six of us piling into a rather confined space, a huge mass of tangled snake-women with one smartphone, where we waited in absolute silence.

And waited. And waited...

After a little while the waiting was agony, and for a fair while we thought that Bambi had changed her mind, realized that her plans had been compromised, changed the plan or the strategy in a way that meant we were going to get an unpleasant surprise.

But...at about ten-fifteen in the morning it began: a buzzing, a solid stream of bee-girls flowing from the hive like a river, heading as expected right towards our home territory. This stream went on for minutes; even in a thirty-story former office building, expanded by Aeris' worker bees, it didn't seem that this many individuals could exist in one place. We took pains not to look to the skies, where these bee-girls would gather in a great, dark cloud, terrorizing everyone that could see them, breathing a sigh of relief as the swarm flew away from them.

Then we waited in silence, again, for the signal from Zoe. That was about twenty-five more minutes.

At long last, Zoe's voice, fierce buzzing in the background: "We've engaged the swarm."

Zoe and the other two hundred and fifty odd lamia left back home had been well-trained, and drilled. As long as they stuck to what Laurie and I had told them, they would be able to defend themselves and pick off the swarm as they wished. Hopefully.

Three more minutes as four of my extended family emerged from their hiding place and went straight for the Hive in plain sight of the guards. The distraction attack was underway.

I knew this response by heart. I'd lived through it probably a dozen or more times, as Willow, in her various incarnations, had followed the defensive drills to the letter. The alarm would get sounded and the designated teams would attack: stream from the hive in a vicious, aggressive, overwhelming manner: a single attacker would find him or herself facing an overwhelming onslaught of a hundred angry bee-girls, each looking to score as many stings as she could get in, when all it would ever take is just one. People learned very quickly not to threaten them.

But now, with the swarm, there weren't a hundred bee girls left to attack. Now I watched, peering around a corner, and tried to keep count, and as I counted the numbers I figured Bambi had only dispatched seventy or eighty. Our four decoys would now simply circle their wagons, diving into each other's coils to present a rather bee-proof exterior, and wait there, totally defensive.

There was no plan in the drill for this; no easy way for the lead guard to terminate the attack with the attackers still very much alive, a threat the moment the bee-girls retreated.

I grinned.

Now.

Slinking down corners and through bushes, still single file and ready to encoil ourselves in tail armor if we had to, we made our way down the sidewalk and right up to the hive itself. Climbing the five floors was no problem, now that my tail was long enough: gain some purchase on each floor and push myself to the floor above, then side-wind quickly to the entrance.

We'd rehearsed each move. There were only three guards at the main entrance: fewer than I'd ever seen. I was second in the procession. As the guards quickly found themselves wrapped in naga coils, I did a swift handstand off the sixth floor and vaulted directly to the "decoy" seventh, where I backed through the narrow tunnel. Nobody would expect this - no beegirl would think an outsider would even know about it, least particularly any guard at the far end of the tunnel. For this brief moment I was exposed, unable to coil around myself, but I could use the far end of the tunnel to locate and quickly encircle the guard bee I suspected would be there-- and she was.

Strike. Coil. Squeeze. Then I backed myself out of the tunnel. None of the bees' rehearsed defenses would know how do deal with this, with someone who had intimate knowledge of their defenses, the layout of the Hive...everything.

Wanting to save all of my own venom for Bambi, I waited until one of my fellow snake-women made it to the seventh floor, left my captive to her, and then headed directly for the Queen's chamber. There may have been other bee-girls that needed dealing with, but the Queen was the big prize. My body seemed made for this: zipping around corners, spanning distances, lifting up through passages in the ceiling faster than a bee could maneuver through the tight spaces borne by the knowledge of countless weeks of seeing it through the eyes of Daisy. One day, I'll thank her for that.

Below I heard screaming, and I'm sure the radio channels were a jumble of emergency messages that were effectively blinding the bee-girls to the scale of what was happening; what to them might have been one outsider somehow getting in was in fact a full infiltration assault. I'd also asked the lamia to (if they could) persuade the bee-girls they captured to give false messages to further add to the confusion. I'm not sure if it was helping at all, but our way ahead for the most part remained clear.

I had to wait for reinforcements at one point, and then led the final charge. Three particular bees were to be left alone unless they attacked first: all three appeared to be assigned to protect the larvae, whom we had no interest in. One of my other sisters found the new queen, one of Bambi's offspring that had been given a fast-track to that role and looked young and not ready for it. Nor would she ever be now; I got only a glimpse of her through the doorway as she disappeared into my sister's coils.

My other teammates led a direct assault on the two Scouts at the door to the Queen's chambers. This made sense: in an attack drill, the Queen's Guard normally protecting this door would move to the Queen's side, and two less-experienced Scouts would taken their place if no other Guard members were available. Though they may have known something was happening within the Hive, they were not ready for us, not at all. These two bees spun in the air as two of my friends wrapped their tails around them.

I waited for a moment and caught my breath. The hive had become quieter, but now it was louder again. The seventy or eighty bees that had fallen for our decoy were now trying to get back into the hive to protect the Queen, and now had to face their own defenses. We'd secured the entrance to the Hive, and could now just snatch bee-girls out of the air as they tried to land and come in -- picking them off one at a time. Partially-paralyzed bees lay everywhere, trying in vain to coordinate themselves to stand up. We'd trained to incapacitate four bee-girls each, which meant a bit of venom conservation, and I watched my fellow lamia inject their rationed venom into the two scouts. For now, the direction was to leave them until both queens had been neutralized. I went to open the doors to the Queens' Chamber with two hands and then thought better of it: there'd likely be a bee right inside this door and I'd be just asking to get stung right in the chest. I backed away, slipped the tip of my tail through one door handle, and motioned to my teammate Daphne to open the other door, and we pulled them open at the same time.

There were only two more of the Queens Guard protecting Bambi. And there was Bambi herself. She was larger than I ever remember seeing Aeris, high in the air, a huge tail section.

The guards charged and I ducked behind my partners' tails, and used my own tail to defend them.

Bee Girl Secret #5: They have no idea what to do when attacked like this - by a creature who can shield themselves and then strike back. Perhaps that nutjob in the full body armor came closest, he was just one. We were many. As the two Queens Guard were grabbed by my friends, I made straight for Bambi.

My tail was now long enough to coil it around Bambi and get myself into position to look her right in the eyes. Bee Girl Secret #6: The Queen's sting is practically useless; her tail is too large and heavy to even aim it while maintaining any kind of balance. Within a few moments, she was helpless within my grasp.

I looked down. The two remaining members of the Queens' Guard were wrapped in lamia tail, had fallen to the ground, and were squirming helplessly, still desperately attempting to protect their Queen. I made Bambi watch as Daphne used the last of her venom to incapacitate the Guard she was holding, and then the other bee-girl cowered and started crying as Sophia started touching her shivering body, carefully picking out a prime injection site for her bosom's contents.

Right. Time for business.

"There's not enough of you," Bambi screeched, defiantly. "The Swarm is on its way back. They'll kill you all."

I smiled before nodding at Daphne, and reached into the pouch sewn into the side of her bra strap and removed our team's phone. Thirty seconds later she had Zoe on speakerphone.

"We made it," Daphne said. "We're in the Queen's chambers. Did the swarm retreat?"

"Yes, just about a minute ago."

"How many?"

"Eight," Zoe said.

Bambi laughed. "So... twenty-six of you... excuse me... thirty of you against eight hundred of my finest warriors?"

"Not eight hundred," Zoe said, her voice tinny and distant. "Eight."

"Eight?" Bambi asked. "But that makes no sense--?!"

Daphne held the tiny screen up so Bambi could see what was happening. The defensive tactics - written from my knowledge of bee-girl weaknesses - that had been given to Zoe and the other lamia had been a runaway success. The field-- my home-- was littered with paralyzed bee-girls that my species was in the process of systematically swallowing into their cavernous selves. The same thing was beginning in the Hive itself, as my twenty-nine raiders started helping themselves to the bee-girls they'd already caught. Each lamia could, of course, take in multiple bee-girls depending on size...so I expected that, despite the sheer number of them, the only thing that separated each and every bee-girl there from disappearing into one of my sisters was a matter of time.

I shrugged. "Bit of a shame that eight got away, really."

"It's over, Bambi," Zoe said.

"No, it isn't," I said. "Not while this one can produce more of them. Not while she still lives." I looked Bambi right in the eyes.

"Who are you?" Bambi asked. "How have you done this?"

I took a deep breath, squeezing just a little tighter. I had been waiting for this moment for a pretty long time, and I wanted to drink it in, to enjoy it as much as I could. Righteous vengeance was here, right here for me...and that felt good.

I made eye contact with Bambi, just to make sure I had her full attention, and then began by speaking three words.

"But this will."

For a moment Bambi just looked at me, nonplussed. I let my smile grow a bit, before seeing if I could jog her memory.

"Rather a long time ago, you said that to a dear friend of mine as you stung her, before dragging her away, screaming, to this place. Do you remember that?"

Bambi still had at least a reserve of arrogant hauteur, as she sneered back at me before replying.

"I say that to a lot of those that I brought back here."

I nodded. "I'm sure that you do."

"Why should your dear friend be so special?"

"You knew who she was before you caught her. She was a VIP...one that got a body to herself after Aeris...processed her."

For a moment, Bambi just looked at me. "How...do you know the name of the Queen before me?"

Now I let my grin fully extend. "Because when you captured that person you considered to be very important and dragged her here...I was with her. I was with her all through what you monsters did to her - all the conditioning, the ripping away of her identity, all of the time - the countless weeks - when she had no idea of who she really was because of what you'd done to her. Through her eyes, I knew everything she did. Everything you did. Everything about this Hive, how it operates, how all of you work. Everything to one day...bring this whole sadistic enterprise crashing down around you."

I shook my tail. "And now...that day has come. And the name of my friend...is Daisy Potemkin."

"Daisy...?" Bambi looked off to the side while trying to recall. "Willow."

She tried another sting and almost nicked my foot; I had to pull my lower body up to be totally safe. Meanwhile, Sophia, who had carefully yet unnecessarily unfastened her bra top, pressed her right breast into the second Queen's Guard and whispered: "That doesn't hurt, does it?"

Sophia cast a wry glance in my direction. I nodded at her.

"You call her Willow," I continued. "To me - to everyone outside this Hive - she will always be Daisy."

"I knew she was going to be trouble. I just knew it. When she vanished after cheating at the Games I should have had her hunted down. But I still don't understand. Who are you, and how and why were you 'with her'? Other than some vague misguided sense of justice, what is your interest in this?"

I gave a shrug before thinking about the question for a moment. I wanted to spin out the exultance of this moment, but also because I actually wanted to give her as full and honest an answer as I could.

"Welllll...yes and no. The conditioning that Aeris put on her subjects was comprehensive. I'll grant that much - she made a system almost guaranteed to give zero dissent and absolute loyalty. If there hadn't been a... complication, she would have been no trouble to you at all.

"However...when she caught and processed Daisy - as well as having the overweening arrogance to consume the girl who had made what she did possible in the first place...she didn't think to check that Daisy might, just might, have had another presence within her mind - a remnant of the 6.0 upgrade that allowed her to somehow keep and store those another might have consumed. One that she had saved, not too long before. One that owes to her, her life. One who was - and is - fully prepared to repay that debt by helping her out of the hole she found herself in...and, more importantly, had the time, the ability and the smarts to manage it."

Yes. Perhaps that last part was a bit egotistical. But right now, I didn't care.

"And also..." I went on, the smile disappearing, "one who saw the bee-girls take in countless hundreds and hundreds of innocent people without their consent, stripping away their identities. One who was a victim of another doing exactly the same thing."

And now my voice became deep, truly angry.

"One who learned what she could in order to do anything, anything at all, to make that stop."

I took a few deep breaths. I didn't want to lose it entirely at this stage. It wouldn't help.

"And so here I am."

Another deep breath.

"My name is Francesca Castella. You stung and brought my dear friend here. Your leader tried to take away her mind. In time, you would have cost me my mind, too. And for that, and for the thousands of innocent lives you have taken...you are going to pay. Today."

"Daisy Potemkin saved your life," Bambi finally confirmed. "She had you inside her, like I have had those 'thousands of innocent lives' inside me.' It doesn't seem to me that your presence inside Ms. Potemkin was voluntary, now, does it?"

"Daisy saved me! From one who was going to do exactly what you do - worse, in fact. What does that have to do with anything at all??"

"Lisa, has the snake-woman poisoned you badly enough that you can no longer speak with us?"

The bee-girl in Sophie's coils was looking rather blankly at the ceiling, but when Sophie relaxed her coils a bit, the bee-girl responded: "I can speak."

"Good," Bambi continued. "When Daisy... Willow stung you and swallowed you... that wasn't voluntary, was it?"

"No, your highness."

"Are you glad she did it, in the end?"

"Of course I am."

Lisa? I thought, panicking. Not that Lisa?? Great. That complicates things.

"Have you enjoyed being one of us, Lisa? Working on a team with your mother and... father? Being a part of our community?"

"It was the best thing ever to happen to me, your highness."

I try to remain cool. "You and I both know she has no choice but to answer that way. I've heard this all before, your highness. Took a while to convince Daisy about who she really was, in all honesty."

Bambi ignored my rant and continued speaking to Lisa. "Apparently, Dear Lisa, you're going to become a naga. I hope that becoming a flightless, dirt-crawling snake-woman will be as rewarding an experience. I'm sorry I'm unable to prevent it, Lisa. I'd have done anything to protect my daughters, but apparently your life is about to be 'taken' from you... involuntarily."

Bambi then looked, with those steely violet eyes, right into mine. "Just like this one swallowed my daughter Chloe. It was Chloe, wasn't it, not Miranda? I hear more of Chloe's voice in you. You raided her mind to find the one moment in time when we'd be vulnerable. A moment of weakness while we were reproducing. Is Chloe still inside you? Did you... kill her?"

"No! I liberated her! She remembers who she used to be! I gave birth to her this morning! She's a lovely--"

"This morning?? And now you're... here? Mother of the year, Francesca. Your frightened daughter, barely free of your snake-womb, abandoned--"

No real answer to that. I had left her behind. With no choice, but I had done it. "She's safe. She's with my sister and best friend--"

"My point, if I have to make it painfully clear, is that you and I are not unalike, Francesca. I may 'take' humans, but I don't kill them, except in the rarest of circumstances. I may merge them into fewer bodies than they had before, and I may give them a framework that helps us fit in with our culture, but we also take pains to preserve them such that, someday, should they decide to leave us--"

I have to give a laugh at that one. "They can't 'decide' to leave you! And do you really expect me to think that you would ever let them? Ever? You take away everything that represents their selves. You replace their identities with ones you designate, their bodies with ones you designate, everything that makes them what they were either destroyed or held in a place so secure that they have, in all likelihood, no chance of recovering it. No chance of being the self they were with the free will that they had. I know how you 'preserve' them, Bambi. I saw it, remember? Less preservation, and more 'ice-cold-no-chance-of-recovery-storage-unless-you-become-a-Queen-and-do-the-same-as-me', yes?"

I squeeze again. "Tell me...how different is that from killing someone?"

"Fine. You fail to understand, Francesca, that someday every member of my colony will eventually reach the rank of Queen. And while I will, honestly admit that their loyalty is fairly tightly bound, especially at the lower ranks, when they reach this level they will all have free will, as much as I have it or you have it or anyone has it. It's a plan, snake-woman. One you seem hell-bent on disrupting."

"That makes no sense. You seriously want them to think that a thousand bee-girls will all become Queen?"

"And why not?"

"Because that would require a thousand hives just like this one? Packed with workers who are subservient. You can't make a Hive work if everyone is a Queen with free will, after all."

"Not precisely, as some of us do retire eventually... but I won't disagree with you. A thousand hives with a thousand bee-girls each would mean only one million of us. There are still over nine billion humans on the planet."

"And you've no plan to stop this until every last one of them is gone?"

Bambi smiled. "More or less. And apparently now we have to come up with a way of wiping out pesky snake-women as well. I underestimated you, Francesca, but none of us will make that mistake again."

As I opened my mouth to respond, to say how raving mad I thought she was, I heard a shout from not far away. "Look out! More bees!" A low hum turned into a distinctive buzz.

"Ah," Bambi said. "At last, reinforcements. Thanks for helping pass the time, Francesca."

I cursed inwardly. I'd forgotten about the emergency exits. The eight escaped Swarm members had been instructed to avoid the main entrance, where my sisters and cousins awaited, re-entered the hive through two other hidden entrances which were, at the moment, unguarded.

I looked down. Sophia's vagina had opened in preparation for swallowing her victim; she was in no position to provide additional defense. Most of my teammates were now finishing the cleanup phase of our attack, swallowing the already-poisoned bees. Their venom glands would be almost completely drained, and they were exhausted.

"Welcome back, girls," Bambi whispered, seemingly to herself, but I knew that message was going out over her built-in radio transmitter. "Let's see how many of them we can take out on your way here."

She looked at me. "They may not be able to swallow a fully-grown naga, but I can." Bambi's tail squirmed, and swelled, and for the first time I had to admit that my muscles were tiring holding her like this. "And now they have the experience of battling snake-women. See, this is what Daisy has given us. Not death, like you seem to think: but life. Challenge. Excitement. Opportunity."

I looked at Daphne, who still held Lisa-- whom we were supposed to leave alone-- tight, now unsure what to do.

The buzzing outside was getting closer. I was sure I heard at least one of my cousins get stung.

"Soon, I'll be giving birth to a whole new crop of daughters, each of whom will know just how to deal with a snake-woman," Bambi said, laughing. "I'll have to rebuild both colonies, but you've already seen that it's something I'm good at. And if more humans have to be 'sacrificed' for that effort, it'll all be thanks to you, my poor misguided naga."

I ignored Bambi's taunt as best I could and turned to Daphne. "Leave her. We have to get out of here."

"What about you?" Daphne asked, tentatively loosening her grip on Lisa. I mentally kicked myself for not recognizing Lisa: her appearance had changed just enough.

"I'll protect Sophia and we'll follow you," I said. "There's just one thing I have to do first."

I turn back to Bambi, giving another smile. "You sound awfully confident for someone still at the mercy of a lamia."

I clutch her close, pinning her upper body against my own.

"You took eighteen months of my life, bee-girl. You took eighteen months from her life. And that needs to be paid for."

Bambi spat. "What are months to us? We, who live forever?"

I shook my head at that one. "Yes, of course. Unlimited lifetime, your self being passed from generation to generation...as long as it is only the self you approve of - brainwashed, obedient, subservient. I died once rather than let that happen to me - though the fear at the end led to another pushing me over the edge. I was prepared to die again rather than let it happen again here. That's what you lost when you lost your humanity, bee-girl. Your ultimate freedom of choice.

Oh, and about living forever...guess what? You won't."

I take another breath, ready for the final part of my speech. The thing I had wanted to say ever since I had truly awoken and seen what these...things had done to Daisy.

"We are nothing alike, Bambi. You consume, rip away, degrade, impose your will. I liberate, allow people to be who they want to be. And...what you said earlier about justice...just, really? You don't know the meaning of the word. Just like the one who captured me all that time ago. She believed what she was doing was "just", too - and she was just as misguided as you. Let me tell you a little thing about justice, bee-girl - if I wanted justice, true justice, then that would be destroying that Hive of yours with everyone inside as we speak. And, once that was done, finding both Aeris and Mary and bringing them here alive, so that they can pay for every single innocent life they have taken, every single innocent identity they have erased. Every second they have abused the gift that Daisy gave them, the one that promised a better world - still could promise a better world - but for people like you was just another way to exert power over people! And, most of all, for trying to use that gift against her - trying to make her one of them!! It was only due to my intervention - which was more luck than judgement, by the way - that they failed!

No, bee-girl - justice would be all of that being paid for with lives. And believe me, if it were up to me, the Hive would already be rubble, the search for them would already have begun and justice would already have begun to be served.
"

"Your words don't hurt me, lamia."

"I'm aware of that, bee-girl. But this will."

I began injecting Bambi with my venom, both glands at the same time, slowly enough for her to feel it flowing into her.

"What-- what are you doing? Stop!"

"What?" I remark with a smile. "You didn't see this coming? I haven't enough time to convince you. But I have enough venom inside me to kill you, and with you, this entire colony."

"No!"

I grinned at her and continued to pump my secretions into her. Her eyes became wild, she thrashed with her tail. I reached up with one hand and snapped both of her antennae: it would make no difference as the alarm had already gone out, but I wanted her to feel that loneliness, that pain. The same feeling she had put almost every single being she'd captured through.

"No-- you have no idea--"

"I have every idea. Remember? I was there. Chloe sends her regards. Goodbye, Bambi."

I let the remainder my venom loose, coursing through her chest into her body. Bambi is big, and I want to make fully sure that it is enough to bring her down. I looked down: Sophia had finished swallowing her bee-girl and Daphne had released Lisa.

Sophia looks at me with panic. "Come on Francesca...we have to leave. Now!"

I know it. I can hear the buzzing getting stronger and stronger.

At last I uncoil from my foe and drop her on the ground where she falls, unconscious. She'll be dead within hours, taking this entire colony with her. We flee the Queen's Chamber and make our way quickly down through the Hive, where the other lamia await and we regroup to make our way out.

One of my teammates was indeed stung, but thankfully it turned out that it's not serious. She has a puncture wound on her hip but the attacking bee-girl was yanked away before a sufficient dose of venom could be delivered. Sophia, Daphne and I help her down and we escape the hive at last.

The bee-girl nightmare is over.

Dearest Chloe: I shall see you very, very soon. You're safe now and always will be.
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