BD - Chapter 357 - Bee-hold the Might of Bumbles!

Starami’s forces continued to swim around the Abyssal Trench in the big dragon coat, searching for the exit. They stayed to the sides of the room, closer to the walls, apparently even this stronger Tower Guard didn’t want to venture into the heart of the mana storm. Eventually, though, they made their way to the far end of the room. Belissar hadn’t made any adjustments to the room itself besides adding the mana storm, so the exit was plain and clear along the cliff face at the room’s end and the Tower Guard found it with ease.

Belissar…probably should have tried to make it harder to find but that would have to wait until later. The dragon coat opened its jaws and pushed them against the exit, forming a tight seal. The Tower Guard then pushed a kobold through the door.

Since the kobold wasn’t instantly killed this time, the Tower Guard began to deploy. And so, Starami’s forces stepped out into the Fairy Grove.

The room went silent as soon as one of the five stronger Tower Guard stepped inside. The wind died down, the leaves stopped rustling, even the swirling mana in the fairy circles slowed. A moment later, it all picked up again, restoring the forest’s usual ambience as if nothing had happened. Belissar wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but for now he focused on the Tower Guards themselves. None of the guards said any commands, yet the Tower Guard moved into action all the same. Three of the stronger guards led around eighty of the rest and began assembling a formation guarding the door they came from. The stronger guard who made the water coat returned back into the Abyssal Trench and began swimming back, more Tower Guards and monsters were assembling in the Hall of Purification.

The last of the five stronger guards took the twenty remaining Tower Guards and a bunch of the monsters and then boldly marched deeper into the Fairy Grove. He wore armor made of dragonscales and bones and seemed to carry no weapons with him, but took the lead ahead of his armed troops all the same.

The Fairy Grove started its work. Two Tower Guards at the rear of the vanguard took a sudden turn when their feet caught on a raised root and passed behind a tree. When they finished walking around the tree…the rest of the vanguard was nowhere in sight. The two glanced around, frowning when they failed to find their fellow guards.

They were about to call out to their companions when arrows struck them in the head and neck, courtesy of the green elf rangers stalking their group.

Another two heard a rustle in a nearby patch of bushes covered in closed flower buds and immediately turned on it with swords at the ready. They brought their shields together and then turned to call their leader…only to find the group had already moved on and they were now alone.

And having turned their attention away from the bush, they didn’t notice the flowers bloom. They heard a puff and then found themselves in a thick cloud of poisonous pollen. The two immediately began to cough…and soon started to hack up blood.

They didn’t notice other flowers in the area starting to move, courtesy of one dungeon master of flowers…

Little by little, Tower Guards disappeared from the rear of the vanguard. Eventually, the stronger Tower Guard leading them frowned. He turned around…and then immediately scowled.

“Where’s the rest of you?”

It was only then that the vanguard realized they had somehow lost half their number. The stronger Tower Guard narrowed his eyes…and then smirked.

“I see, all that mana in the air isn’t just for show. In that case…”

He took a deep breath, then spun around and unleashed a breath of dragonfire all around the vanguard.

Only for a nearby fairy circle to flash blue just before it was engulfed in flames. It burst into a massive cloud of steam that immediately obscured the entire area around the vanguard. The Tower Guard all had their mana prepared to fight and so were able to resist the heat of the steam…but they could no longer see each other, much less the forest beyond.

But they could hear as their companions screamed…and then were suddenly silenced.  The lead Tower Guard cursed and flared his mana.

“To the skies!”

Dragon wings made of mana formed on his back while he crouched down, then he leapt into the air. The canopy attempted to block his way but he formed dragon claws over his hands and cut right through it, bursting out into open sky.

At which point he found himself face to face with a dragon and a sky full of monster bees, all illuminated by a bright light on the top of a tower in the distance.

***

Finnakynne held her head and shrank down into Bumbly’s fuzz.

“No…not again…”

Despite her misgivings, she couldn’t let Beely’s Tower fall nor the bumblebees face danger alone, so here she was, back in the midst of a mortal conflict. She heard screams from the forest below. She whimpered as waves of fear, pain, regret, and death washed over her. She tried to ignore it but she naturally absorbed the mana, she couldn’t stop it anymore than she could stop her heart from beating. She perceived every emotion filling the mana as it spread throughout her being, attuning her to the exact experiences in which it was created. She could feel every mortal that died below and their exact emotional state as it happened.

But then Bumbly began to buzz her wings as loud as she could, drowning out the screams. Finnakynne popped and eye open and glanced around. The bumblebee soldiers were all hovering as close to her as they could without interfering with each other’s flight. She could feel their concern for her, even though their home was under attack, even though they were about to fight a terrible battle, they still noticed her distress. They threw their mana towards her, engulfing her in the embrace of the bumblebee nest.

It felt like warm fuzz surrounding her from all around. And Finnakynne felt her own mana shift, flowing into the familiar pattern of connecting with bumblebees. She could still feel the death and pain below…but it grew faint, as if occurring at a distance now. When she paid attention, she could even feel bits of that mana flowing away from her, spreading to the bumblebees instead.

Her face warped through several expressions, but she decided to just hug Bumbly.

“Thank you…all of you…”

She sent her own mana through the bumble soldiers around her. They zipped around a happy circle before settling back into their formation. Finnakynne noted that the death and pain grew even fainter as she focused her mana on actively helping the bumblebees…so she decided to do just that.

And as she focused on connecting her mana with the bumblebees…she began to pick up a new source of mana, one flowing to the bumblebees. The mana of all of Beely’s other bees, the mana that linked them all together. A wave of mana surged from the one they called Firstborn.

“Dragon in trouble! First squads, dive and help!”

That got Finnakynne’s attention, so she refocused on the battle itself. The little dragon hatchling Beely had just spawned had apparently decided to attack the flying Tower Guard on his own, without waiting for Beely or the bees’ signal. The Tower Guard had smacked his jaws away and now gripped the dragon by the neck. The hatchling clawed at the man, but his claws didn’t seem to do much to the armored soldier. The man squeezed and the hatchling's scales started to crack under his claws. The hatchling cried out.

The bee army moved in to help its new ally. Since the dragon was in the way, the sprayers and archers couldn’t attack, so the soldier squads dove in instead, lead by the Firstborn and her monster bee knights.

The Tower Guard took a deep breath and unleashed dragonfire on the bees.

Finnakynne’s eyes widened at the powerful burst of fiery mana that washed over the soldier squads. Those with bee armor from the pixies survived, but both the barriers and the sacrificial artifacts all broke under the attack. Those without artifacts were not so lucky. A huge arc of the soldier bee formation was forced to retreat…or fell from the sky, covered in flames. Some of those then disappeared in flashes of light, but the rest of the army now took their distance from the threat.

Finnakynne felt the bumblebees receive a barrage of mana…

“Too much fire, can’t dive! Small King-thing armor broke!”

“Bring Third of Sixth, need fire! Need burning bees!”

“But need save dragon! Needs help!”

Bumbly and her fellow bumble soldiers buzzed and then immediately began to fly towards the man.

“Wait Bumbly, it’s dangerous!”

But Bumbly ignored Finnakynne’s warning. Indeed, Finnakynne could feel Bumbly’s emotions and of all the bumblebees. They refused to let the smaller bees get hurt, intent on putting their bigger bodies in the way and driving away their enemy.

The Tower Guard noticed the big bees approaching and took a deep breath…

“NO!”

Finnakynne popped out Bumbly’s fuzz and glared right at the Tower Guard, unleashing her mana. She barely remembered to shape it at all and so fell back on the pattern she had drilled the most over the course of her life. The pattern her mother dearest had tried the hardest to instill into her for over a century, the glamour intended to subtly warp the perceptions of those around her.

Finnakynne was feeling anything but subtle right now, as she lashed out with all of her might in a vaguely Mind-attributed blast of power. Her blessing and her own power deep within her stirred and joined her mana in her attempt to save Bumbly.

“DON’T HURT THE BUMBLES!”

The Tower Guard flinched…and then scowled. He sent out his own burst of mana out with a roar.

“Witch! You will not sway the mind of a Tower Guard!”

But the Tower Guard never unleashed his dragonfire, so Bumbly was able to smash right into him, creating a big tangle of bumblebee, dragon hatchling, and Tower Guard. Her stinger didn’t pierce his armor, but she certainly got in his way, the other bumblebee soldiers even backed off since they couldn't find a good angle in the chaos. The Tower Guard tried to swing at her with his free hand and the dragon claws formed over them, but Finnakynne shouted and unleashed another blast of mana, causing him to pause for a second. He scowled again and instead tried to swing the dragon in his other hand, intending to use him as a club to knock away the bumblebee.

The thing was, though, that the bumblebees weren’t alone.

The regular soldier bees had taken their distance after the first dragon breath defeated an entire formation of squads all at once. But the Firstborn and her soldier bee knights hadn’t. They dove down from above while the bumblebees had charged from the front. The Firstborn arrived while Finnakynne froze the Tower Guard for a brief instant. She sent a pulse of mana to her wings to adjust her course, curving around to aim for the Tower Guard’s back since the bumblebee soldier was covering his front.

Her mana-coated stinger struck the back of the Tower Guard’s shoulder one the same side as the arm that held the dragon hatchling in its grip. The Tower Guard was currently focusing his mana on defending his mind from Finnakynne’s assault, so he had no special protection on his back. Still, the Firstborn’s stinger didn’t manage to pierce through his armor…but it did strike his shoulder with great force. And then more of the monster bee knights flew in, striking his lower back and the backs of his legs, though they had no more success piercing his armor than their squeen.

The Tower Guard let go of the dragon hatchling as he lurched forward, now sandwiched between a bumblebee soldier tackling his front and the chivalric monster bee queen and her monster bee knights trying to sting his back. He tried to tear off Bumbly, but Finnakynne froze him every time he tried to touch the bumblebee. He growled and began to stir up his mana.

“Bumbly, move!”

Bumbly obliged this time, stopped trying to sting the Tower Guard, and began flying away. The Firstborn seemed to have heard Finnakynne and flew away as well with her knights. A moment later, the Tower Guard let out a breath of dragonfire that coated his entire body.

Finnakynne sent her mana to speed up Bumbly’s wings and the bumblebee soldier barely got out of range of the flames in time. Finnakynne then felt the Firstborn’s mana trying to reach her. Thanks to her connection with the bumblebees, she heard what the monster bee queen wanted to say.

“Bumble helper! Can help hide bee?!”

It was then that Finnakynne realized the Firstborn wasn’t alone either. There was a smaller monster bee soldier riding on the bigger queen’s head. Or rather…a monster bee assassin if Finnakynne wasn’t mistaken.

Her eyes widened and she realized the Firstborn’s plan. She shook her head, though, remembering her first attempt at hiding bees from the mortals’ attention.

“I have a better idea, I’ll distract him!”

So, rather than trying to hide the monster bee assassin, she sent out another burst of mana to assault the Tower Guard directly, as powerful as she could make it. This time, however, she took the time to arrange the mana into a more proper glamour form…if still a brute force one given the sheer amount of power she thrust into it.

“STOP IT! LISTEN TO ME! STOP HURTING THE BUMBLES, OR ELSE!”

Her mother had always warned her that brute forcing a glamour would have the opposite effect. Indeed, the Tower Guard scowled and narrowed his eyes on her.

“I’ll kill you and them, fey witch!”

Her mana bounced off of his, making him wince but not causing him to freeze this time. He took a deep breath, clearly intent on engulfing Finnakynne and Bumbly in flames.

And so, he didn’t notice the monster bee assassin fly up to him, land on his back, and crawl to position herself over a gap in his armor, sliding her stinger in with ease.

“Gah!”

He noticed the sting, though.

Author’s Note:

Oh silly non-bee. You dare hurt the bees? In front of bumble helper?! You’re about to find out why her mother never taught her to be nice!

And you shall receive the sting, of course. You’ve earned it.

…now if only King’s silly non-bee could learn to be a helper instead of making things worse…

Anyways!

Can bumble helper save the bumbles? Will the Firstborn’s plan succeed? Will the silly non-bee get the stings he deserves? Tune in next time, to find out!