Chapter 11: Pepper Spray is Surprisingly Effective Against Giant Insects!!!

Alice stepped outside her apartment and called a taxi. The train station was too far for her to feel comfortable walking there by herself, especially considering that she was carrying two people's worth of luggage. She still had about two hours before the train left, but she at least wanted to make it to the station before the sun completely set. While she waited for the taxi, she scolded Beatrice for packing so heavily.

"Dammit, Beatrice, did you really have to take that much with you?" she said, the small black earpiece hidden by her bright red hair picking up her words and relaying them to another earpiece inside her purse.

"Shut up! I'm not the one who insisted on bringing her entire novel collection with her! How long do you think this journey is even going to take, anyway? You're definitely not going to finish them all," a small voice berated her through her earpiece.

"What do you mean, 'my entire collection?' It was only 20 books!" she shot back.

Beatrice was currently only a few centimeters tall, sitting in one of the folds of Alice's purse. Her phone was in there, too, and she was currently on a Skype call with Alice. One of her own earpieces was connected to her phone, with its volume turned to the lowest setting. Even so, it was still a bit loud. And for the microphone to even pick up her voice, she had to raise her voice as she spoke into it. She knew she'd probably lose her voice if she did this all day, but talking to Alice was pretty much the only thing she could do inside of Alice's dark purse.

Alice had made sure to thoroughly clean her purse out and vacuum the inside of it before Beatrice stepped into it, but despite this it still had a few coarse particles here and there which to Beatrice were the size of small stones. To protect her from the rough particles and to give her a comfortable place to relax during their journey, Alice had put several cotton pads and tissues inside of her purse arranged almost like a bed. The cotton fibers were a lot bigger to Beatrice at her current size, and they tickled her every time she moved. Thus, she was currently wrapped up in a white tissue like she was using it as a blanket so she wouldn't brush up against the cotton with her bare skin.

"Only 20!?" she shouted. "Girl, you need help!"

"I do no-!" the earpiece shouted back at her before cutting itself off. "The taxi's here. You're about to get jumbled around a bit as I put all my stuff in the cab. I'll try to be gentle, but…"

"Yeah, I got it, don't worry," Beatrice sighed. "Thanks for the heads-up."

Alice's bright red hair bobbed as she turned her head to face the yellow car that had just pulled up in front of her. After briefly exchanging words with the driver, a small, thin man looking to be no younger than 35 stepped out of the car wearing the black uniform of the taxi company and a blue pair of jeans. He stepped forward to offer Alice a hand with her luggage, which she graciously accepted even though she felt a little bad about making such a short man handle such heavy luggage.

Such thoughts were quickly erased from her head as he deftly lifted both suitcases and effortlessly placed them into the trunk. Her mouth agape at what she had just seen, she almost didn't hear the man's voice as he spoke to her.

"Train station, right?" a gruff, masculine voice snapped her out of her stupor.

"Uhh… yeah! Sorry, I, uh…" she stammered.

"It's alright; I'm a lot stronger than I look. I used to be in the army, you know!" he laughed, correctly guessing the cause of Alice's confusion.

With that, they both stepped into the car, Alice nearly throwing her purse onto the seat next to her until she remembered what was in it. She hastily grabbed it and slung it back around herself.

"Ow! Be more careful!" Beatrice complained.

"Sorry, sorry!" Alice responded.

"Hm? You say something?" said the driver.

"Oh, yeah, I'm on the phone with my friend right now," Alice explained, lifting up some of her hair to reveal the earpiece.

"Ah, okay, I'll leave you be, then," said the driver as the car lurched forward.

The train station was only about 20 minutes away, but Alice knew that it would be dark out by the time she got there. Perhaps it was because she waited too long to call a taxi, perhaps it was because the taxi took too long to get there, or perhaps it was simply because of the strange season changes recently, but whatever the case it was still getting dark a lot quicker than she had thought it would.

And sure enough, 10 minutes into the ride it was already completely dark out. It felt strangely quiet and peaceful. Even her conversation with Beatrice had died down. Apparently Ambi had wanted to talk to her for a bit, so she stepped away from her microphone to talk. Alice decided to look out the window at the scenery as it passed them by on their journey to the train station. There were a surprising lack of cars out at this hour. She decided to bask in the calm silence and relax for the remainder of the taxi's journey.

BANG!!!

Suddenly, her whole world turned upside down! She could hear metal loudly clanging around her and glass loudly shattering across her face as her head jolted backwards in her seat. She couldn't even tell what had happened for several seconds before she realized that she had just become the latest victim of a car crash.

"Alice!? Alice!? Alice, what the hell just happened!? Are you okay!?" she heard a voice shouting into her ear.

"Uuuuhhhhh," Alice moaned, still dazed by the crash.

Beatrice had been lucky that Alice's purse was so full of tissues and cotton pads. Even though she wasn't secured by a seatbelt, she was able to emerge relatively unscathed from the crash. Maybe her size had something to do with it? She didn't know how, but at the very least she knew she was okay.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that they had just been in a car crash. Beatrice knew it was probably a bad idea and she might get seen, but she needed to check on Alice to see if she was okay. She hurriedly crawled toward the small opening in the purse's zipper Alice had left for her if she needed to get out of the purse and squeezed her body through it.

She could barely see, but the taxi's interior light provided her with just enough illumination to figure out what happened. The car was badly disfigured, but at least it was upright. She could see the driver was still in his seat, but he wasn't moving. She closed her eyes and prayed to whoever would listen that he was just knocked out. Then, she turned to face Alice.

"Ambi, fly me out of that broken window by Alice!" she shouted

Almost immediately her body went limp and her wings began to buzz. Ambi had taken control of her body, and she began doing exactly as Beatrice said.

Within a few seconds, Beatrice was outside the car and normal-sized once again. She saw that the door had been crushed as the car rolled and probably wasn't able to be opened easily. So, she tightly grabbed the handle and firmly planted her feet on the ground before pulling as hard as she could. To her surprise, the door opened quite easily after some resistance and she was nearly thrown back by the force of her own pull. Regaining her balance, she ran to Alice and unbuckled her seatbelt before picking her up and attempting to throw her over her shoulder.

"Bea, Bea, stop, I'm fine!" Alice protested. "Jesus, when did you get so stro- OH MY GOD, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!?" she shrieked, pointing at something behind Beatrice.

Beatrice could hear something loudly thumping closer behind her, so she quickly jumped out of its way just before it collided with the car, causing the car to turn to face them.

Now brightly illuminated by the car's headlights, she could clearly see what the thing was. It had a bright, orange head, large, brown eyes, six black legs, and an orange-and-black body with a long, pointed back-end.

"OH MY GOD!!!" Beatrice shrieked.

"That's what attacked me earlier! You need to kill it!" Ambi yelled.

But before either of them could react, the thing immediately backed off and began furiously rubbing its eyes with its forelegs as its abdomen pulsed furiously.

In the next moment, Beatrice saw why. Alice had pulled her large can of bear mace out from her purse's main pocket and discharged a healthy serving of it directly into the giant insect's face.

Beatrice stood there, mouth agape, staring at the terrifying creature as it writhed in agony.

"What are you doing!? Shoot it! Kill it! Use your stingers! Aim for the head!" Ambi's voice frantically shouted at her.

Snapping out of her stupor, Beatrice pointed her arm at the writhing creature and tried to remember how to use her stingers.

"Like… this, right?" she thought as she tried flexing a strange new muscle in her forearm. Immediately, she felt something leave it as she heard a loud "THUD!" from just in front of her. Suddenly, the creature started to writhe even more.

"Don't stop now! Keep shooting!" Ambi yelled.

So Beatrice pointed her other arm in the same direction and flexed the same muscle on it as well, causing another stinger to fly out of it and embed itself in the giant hornet in front of her. This time, she hit it right in the eye.

She kept shooting until it stopped moving. Then Alice turned toward her with a surprised expression demanding answers.

"Bea… no, Ambi, what was that!?" she asked, incredulously.

 But before she could answer, Beatrice was tackled by another one that had flown in from somewhere not illuminated by the taxi's headlights. As its two large forelimbs pinned her down, its head reared back as it readied itself to bite her with its massive jaws.

 Alice reflexively aimed her bear mace at it and squeezed the trigger. Instantly, a torrent of orange liquid covered the hornet's face and it lurched backwards. Alice couldn't see where Beatrice had gone, but as she looked around she noticed three more shapes hovering just out of range of the car's headlights.

 When the hornet pinned her down, Beatrice thought she was dead. Ambi screamed at her in her head, but she couldn't make out what she was saying. She was simply too overwhelmed by the orange harbinger of her imminent death bearing down upon her that her mind was wholly consumed by her sheer terror. Suddenly, her body stopped responding to her commands to try to struggle her way out, and in the next moment she shrunk down to avoid being bitten. At the same time, her eyes and face suddenly began to sting.

 Ambi had taken over for her, and she was now trying to fly away from the hornet and get into a better position. She needed Beatrice to control her body so she could actually fight these things, but Beatrice was currently too terrified to do anything. Ambi flew over to the other side of the car and returned to her normal size before leaning her body against its battered hood for support and returning control over to Beatrice.

 "Beatrice! I need you to focus or we're going to die!" she screamed, her tone amplified by the sheer terror of Beatrice's emotions.

 "My eyeeeesssssss!!!!" Beatrice yelled, furiously rubbing her eyes with her arm. The thick brown and tan hair on her wrists began to become wet with her tears as she furiously rubbed her teary, bloodshot eyes. She tried to squint to see the hornet in front of her, but her vision was too blurry and it was too dark to see anything.

 "We need more light! This street is too dimly lit!" Alice thought as she looked at the three hovering shapes just outside of the range of the car's headlights. Suddenly, she had an idea. She quickly ran over to the taxi's driver seat and tried opening the door, but it didn't budge. Using her can of bear mace, she cleared the broken glass off of the sides of the window before reaching into the car and flicking on its high-beam headlights.

 Suddenly, the world became much brighter and she could see the three other hornets flying towards them about 35 meters away. They seemed to stop and stagger a bit as they became illuminated by the lights, seemingly blinded. They quickly dropped to the ground and began to crawl toward the car.

 Suddenly, Alice saw Beatrice over by the hood of the car, furiously rubbing her eyes. She pointed one of her arms at the hornet that Alice had just maced and fired a few stingers, but several of her stingers missed and only one of them hit their mark.

 "Bea, to your right!" Alice yelled. "More are coming!"

 Beatrice turned to face her assailants and screamed. They were about 20 feet away and rapidly closing the distance.

 "Spit at them! Use your wax! It's like squeezing the inside of your thorax!" Ambi yelled incoherently.

 "Use my WHAT!?" Beatrice yelled in response, trying to run backwards as she fired stingers at the hornets. But all of her shots missed due to her blurry vision and the hornets' effortless dodging, so she almost fell over herself as she tried to retreat from the foe quickly bearing down on her.

"You can spit wax on them! It will immobilize them! Just do it!" Ambi yelled.

"I can't spit that far!" she shouted. "And I don't have that much liquid in my body!" she yelled.

"Just trust me!" Ambi responded.

So Beatrice decided to listen to her. She deeply inhaled and turned herself around, trying to let it all out at once. But all she accomplished was a heavy sigh. She tried again, this time trying to spit something at them, but all she did was spit a regular glob of saliva that barely even travelled 1 foot from her. The hornets were now only 12 feet away from the car.

"Not like that!" Ambi yelled. "It's like squeezing your whole chest inside of you! Like you want all the muscles and organs in your chest to squeeze tighter inside your exoskeleton!"

Now the hornets were only 5 feet from the car. Knowing that it was now or never, she inhaled deeply, closed her eyes, and imagined her entire chest compressing like she was trying to tense up her muscles to the point where they were squeezing on her organs. And suddenly, something happened.

She could feel something coming out of her mouth at an alarming speed. Opening her eyes, she saw that one of the hornets was now firmly attached to the hood of the car by a bright yellow liquid. It tried to squirm to escape its sticky prison, but the liquid rapidly hardened around it and it was now stuck. The other two hornets tried to crawl over it, but now that they were so close to her, Beatrice was able to shoot one of them right between its large, brown eyes. It crumpled to the ground instantly. The last one jumped at her and pinned her to the ground, closing its jaws right around her skull. This was it. She was dead.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click!

Suddenly, Beatrice felt a slight pressure on her chest as something heavy fell on her body, pinning her to the ground.

She opened her eyes and blurrily saw a large, black and orange shape covering most of her field of view. She wrapped her hands around it and pushed it off of her, then quickly jumped up to her feet and looked to see what had happened. Her ears were ringing. Her heart was furiously pounding in her chest. As she turned toward the object she had just pushed off of her, she saw that the hornet who had so vigorously jumped at her mere moments prior was now lifeless on the ground next to her. She couldn't see what had killed it and she saw no visible signs of trauma on its body. It was then that she noticed the loud clicking noise next to her.

Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click! Click!

She turned her head and blurrily saw a tall red shape, which she knew to be Alice, holding something small and silver that was pointed directly at the hornet. The object twitched every time she heard that clicking noise. She tilted her head curiously as she wondered what that thing was. Suddenly, she heard banging coming from the car's hood. Alice jumped when she heard it, and Beatrice ran to the side of the car where she saw the hornet that was covered in wax desperately struggling to break free. She shot a couple of stingers into its face and its struggle stopped almost instantly.

Suddenly, another hornet crawled onto the car, but it did so slowly and weakly. It tried to move over its dead sister on the hood, but it soon gave up and tumbled to the ground and stopped moving.

Beatrice ran back over to Alice and began furiously looking around herself for more hornets. But she couldn't see any. Her face was still throbbing and her eyes were all but useless now, so she couldn't tell if she was in danger or not.

"Alice? Alice, can you see any more?" she nervously asked. In response, Alice threw aside the silver object and hugged Beatrice.

"OhmigodBeaIthoughtyouweredeaaaadddd!" she cried, squeezing her as tight as she could.

"OW! ALICE! WINGS!" Beatrice winged.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Alice said, throwing herself off Beatrice.

"What was that!? I thought I was dead!" Beatrice asked, pointing toward the silver object.

"It's a revolver! When I went and turned on the car's high-beams, I saw that the ex-military guy had a holster and a gun," she explained.

Looking at it more closely and squinting, Beatrice could see that it was indeed vaguely shaped like a firearm.

Beatrice sighed, then thanked Alice for saving her life. They simply stood there embracing each other for a few minutes while Beatrice continued rubbing her burning eyes. But then, Alice's eyes turned wide as something dawned on her.

"This isn't over yet, Beatrice! There's nobody on this street right now, so I need to call 911 so somebody can come help the driver! He's pretty hurt! The SWAT team will probably come, too, given that this is legally speaking a supernatural incident. They absolutely can not see you! You know the whole legal quagmire regarding Altered using their powers in public without proper training!" she said hurriedly.

"Oh… oh, shit!" Beatrice said in an astonished tone. Her heart began to race once again and her chest began to tighten. "What do I do!?"

"Just relax," Alice said. "I'll probably volunteer my stuff for a police search. They'll probably want to look through it because this was a supernatural incident. Don't worry, I know the inside of my purse will look strange to them, but I'll hide all the tissues and cotton pads between the cloth layers of the suitcase. The police won't find it," she said, hurriedly. "I'll come up with a story that leaves you out of it. What I need you to do is fly to the train station and wait for me. Um… yeah, wait inside one of the bathrooms. When I'm done with the police, I'll have them drive me and the luggage over to the train station and drop me off. The train station is only a few blocks away from here. It shouldn't be hard to find," Alice said.

"Wha… how long will that even take?" Beatrice asked.

"What, did you sleep through law school!?" Alice shouted. "It'll be anywhere between 30 minutes to a couple of hours from now before I get there... well maybe not," Alice said, shaking her head. "Depending on… no, nevermind. I'm sure I can weasel my way out of-, hmm, that's tricky…" she muttered to herself.

"Alice!?"

"Hm? Oh, sorry!" Alice replied. "Don't worry, I'll surely get there before the train leaves. There's like a 10% chance that you'll need to wait a full day though, but if I'm not there by the time the train arrives then just sneak aboard and go without me."

"Go without you!?" Beatrice gasped.

"Relax, it'll be fine. Just wait for me inside the bathroom at the Portland Train Station," she said. "But that won't happen, I assure you. Just trust me on this. Now go! This street's empty, but someone may come onto the street and I absolutely can not be seen with you! It will ruin the entire story I'm going to tell to the police!" she said.

Beatrice nodded. "G-got it," she said, nervously.

She then shrunk herself and Ambi took over, flying away.

The next hour and a half were a blur. Paramedics looked Alice over and treated her minor cuts and bruises and offered to take her to the hospital for a more in-depth examination, but Alice thoroughly refused. She couldn't miss her train, after all!

"Miss, I strongly recommend you at least get somebody to take you to the hospital," one of the paramedics told her. "Every car crash victim feels a rush of adrenaline during the crash and they think they're fine, but three days later their head and neck are throbbing from whiplash."

"I understand that, I really do," Alice said. "But I just got here! I really want to go see my uncle first!" she said.

The paramedic sighed. "At the very least, please take it easy over the next few days, alright? I don't want you to suffer a permanent injury. You're too young to have to deal with upper back pain."

"Thanks for the warning. I'll make sure to go to an urgent care center for a few exams later," she said.

At that, the paramedic just shook his head and walked over to the rest of the ambulance crew to take care of the taxi driver. Alice overheard them say that he had suffered a pretty bad blow to the head and he very likely had a concussion. Apparently the car had a faulty airbag or something.

"Sounds like a lawsuit… man, I'd kill to have my legal license right now. I'd make a killing representing him! Man, talk about right place, wrong time," she thought. Suddenly, her train of thought was interrupted by a man in full tactical gear holding a rather heavy-looking shotgun. On his helmet, which fully concealed his eyes, she could see the word, "SWAT" in bright white text.

"If it's not too much trouble, ma'am, we'd like to take a statement from you and search your belongings, if possible. We normally wouldn't have to do this, but, well…" he sighed, turning his head toward the hood of the car and the dead hornet encased in a waxen prison resting upon it. "In police cases involving supernatural phenomena, I'm pretty sure we're required to conduct a thorough search of anything and everything involved," he said.

"No problem. Can you take my statement right now? I'm kind of in a hurry," she said.

"Sure thing," the officer replied.