Chapter 2 – A Desperate Escape

"No! They've found us again!"

 "What!? How!? I thought we'd lost them?"

 "At this rate, they'll kill us for sure!"

 High up in the sky, a swarm of large hornets rapidly approached a small group of bees with glowing antennae. In the center of their group flew a large bee with a long, slender abdomen and golden-yellow fur holding an ornate spear with a golden shaft. Turning her head back to see their attackers, her golden eyes began glimmering with fear and frustration.

 "This… this is it. I've failed," she cried. "It's been 3 weeks and I haven't even found a single Essence, let alone a Season Spirit. And these hornets keep picking us off! Look at them, there's too many of them! There's no way I'll make it out of this alive! Mother… sisters… I'm so sorry. I've failed you."

 "Don't say that!" a voice yelled in her head as the bee flying next to her turned to face her. "We might not make it out of this, but you will! You must!" she exclaimed, her emerald-green eyes glistening with determination.

 "Kue…" the larger bee said forlornly, looking toward her friend and lifetime caretaker. She wanted to thank her for the attempt to comfort her, but tell her that she knows it's hopeless and ask her not to be so kind to a failure like herself who didn't deserve such comfort.

It had been three weeks since the Solstice. The Channeler Bees of the Amazon were tasked with keeping nature running smoothly around the world - keeping endangered species alive, helping ecosystems recover from ecological disasters, warding away invasive species, etc. As they do this, they gather energy from the surrounding world. Every little interaction between individual members of an ecosystem - from actions as simple as birds carrying seeds to new locations to actions like eating prey or being eaten by a predator - generated this energy, which they used to protect the natural world as best they could. They also gathered this energy - which comprised the very memory of Nature itself - to fuel certain annual rituals. One such ritual centered around the proper containment and control of four very powerful artificial spirits had experienced a disruption at its most critical point. Now, the spirits were running amok across the world. For a Channeler Bee, it was a nightmare. Each spirit governed a season, and usually only two were ever active at a time, one per hemisphere. But now, all four were active and they were not restricted to a single hemisphere. The seasons of the world rapidly changed every day, causing so many natural disasters that the Channelers simply could not keep up.

And to make matters worse, several prominent individuals in their Hive were completely out of action. When the ritual went awry, the Queen's firstborn was fatally poisoned. She had been set to become the next Oracle of Nature - the Hive's first in nearly 1,000 years. She would have been able to directly enact Nature's will itself... and now she was dead. The secondborn had gone missing during the ritual, and nobody could contact her. The fourthborn and fifthborn had both been knocked unconscious during the ritual because they were far too close to its epicenter when it went awry, and they hadn't woken up since. The High Channeler in charge of several aspects of the ritual was also missing as well, and so were several of her subordinates.

Only a Channeler Bee of royal blood could seal away the spirits once again, but the four most capable of doing so had been rendered unable. Ambi should have been, too, as she was closest to its epicenter when the ritual went awry, but by some unknown miracle she had somehow managed to awaken mere hours after. Though... she wished she hadn't. She wished it could have been any of her sisters instead, anyone but her.

If it had been anyone else, they would not be in this situation right now. So many of her sisters would not have their lives in danger, the Spirits would have been found, and Nature would be safe. But no, by some cruel twist of fate, she was the only one able to hunt down the Spirits. She, who had nearly no natural talent or ability for Channeling, no connection to natural energy, almost no ability to sense Spirits or Essences, and no confidence in herself.

When those hornets found them, her first thought wasn't to save herself. It was that it had finally happened. That this outcome was the inevitable conclusion of this fruitless journey. If there wasn't so much riding on her, she'd have given up long ago. She wanted to give up right now.

Snapping her out of her wallowing in self-pity, Kue turned to face the other bees and her antennae began to glow as her voice yelled instructions in their minds.

 "Listen up, everyone! They're stronger and faster than us, and thanks to the fiasco during the Winter Solstice they're immune to most of our power. We can't beat them, but we can occupy them long enough for the princess to escape! Dive into the human city below us! Fly between the large vehicles and massive buildings like you'd fly through the combs and pillars of our hive! I'll lead! Protect the princess! She is the future of our hive and the last hope to fix this!" Kue yelled before flying in front of the other bees.

 "Yes, Sister!" the bees around her cried in unison before falling into a "v" shaped formation behind Kue.

 Amazed, the larger bee began to look at the smaller bees around her, who had all decided to sacrifice their lives for her in a split second without even a second thought. "Kue, wait!" she yelled at the bee in front.

 "Ambi, my elder sister, there is no other way. I swore an oath to protect and serve you with all my mind, body, and heart, and I shall not break that oath!" Kue yelled before swiftly diving downwards, forcing a confused and conflicted Ambi to follow.

 "Stay close behind the sister at the front. She and I will take the brunt of the wind's force while we dive so that you can save your strength. When I tell you to, break off from the rest of us and don't look back. Fly as fast as you can, as far as you can. Do not wait for us. Find your way back home, and use the hives of lesser bees along the way for food and shelter. Stow away on fast human vehicles to move faster than the hornets and regain strength while you rest. Get some reinforcements from the Hive and continue your search," yelled Kue.

 "No! Kue, I won't let you do this! I command you to stop!" Ambi yelled, her antennae standing straight up on top of her head like long, thin pillars as tears began to well up in her eyes.

 "You have no say in the matter! Now do as I say!" yelled Kue.

 Suddenly, the other bee's voices began to cry out around the princess whom they were protecting.

"We're just common Hive channellers, our lives mean nothing!" one yelled.

"You're infinitely more important than we are! I'll gladly die as a distraction if it means you get to live!" another chimed in.

 "Look, either we all die here together, for no reason, and fail – or we die so that you may live and continue the mission! This world can't live without you!" yelled another.

 "We were sent on this mission to protect you! Let us do our job, my princess, and you do yours!" a fourth yelled.

 The other bees continued to yell – or rather, their mental voices did - that they would follow Kue's plan, and Ambi began to cry. "If I had just been a little smarter, I could have stopped Winter from escaping. I could have stopped Fall, and Spring too! I could have done my duty and protected this world, I was too weak and stupid and now my friends are going to die because I was so weak and stupid. I killed them. I'm a murderer," she thought to herself as her antennae drooped and tears streamed from her eyes.

 "It had to be this way, Ambi! Don't blame yourself. I believe in you! We believe in you! If we believe in you, then you have to believe in yourself, too!" Kue yelled, looking back toward Ambi.

 "They're nearly upon us!" suddenly yelled one of the bees at the back of the formation.

 Ambi looked behind her, and saw that the swarm of large hornets was so close that she could hear the low, droning buzz made by the beat of their wings.

 "We've reached the city!" yelled Kue. "Change to defensive formation and fly down that black pathway with the colorful vehicles moving along it! Fly as close to the ground as you can! When we reach where it crosses with the other path, fly up at the last second!"

 At once, the bees began to shift their positions such that they surrounded Ambi on all sides, with Kue still leading the charge. This formation didn't allow the bees to fly as quickly, but it let them better protect Ambi from the incoming hornets.

 No sooner did Kue finish saying that than a lone hornet at the front of the charge reached the group of bees. They all began to spit wax at it in hopes of covering its wings and dragging it down, and one of them successfully hit it just before its massive, orange mandibles were able to close around one of the bees at the back of the formation. Unfazed, the bee quickly turned around and momentarily stopped flapping its wings, letting its speed carry it through the air. Its abdomen stretched back, then quickly lurched forward as a large, black stinger shot out of its tail end. The long, sharp stinger barely flew through the air before striking the falling hornet in one of its small, black eyes. Its exoskeleton cracked and it flailed in pain before the thick, yellow wax glued it firmly to the warm asphalt. Turning back around and flapping her wings once again, the bee continued her flight behind the group as another stinger began to emerge from the back of her abdomen. That maneuver had just barely put her behind the rest of the group, and she flapped her wings as hard as she could to catch up. Just when she had nearly reached her sisters, a long, orange shadow began to loom over her as a hornet's long, spindly legs readied themselves to enclose around her. She began to fly to the left to attempt to evade the attack, but the hornet was too fast. Its legs began to enclose around her while its sharp mandibles reached down toward her head. Just when she thought all hope was lost, a dozen long, sharp objects sailed through the air around her. One of them tore through the hornet's wing, and the damage caused it to suddenly veer off to the right and fall behind before crashing into the asphalt and rolling for several centimeters.

 "We'd already glued it with wax! It was probably going to get crushed by a human or burn in the sun! You didn't need to try to finish it off! Keep your ego in check so you can defend the princess, sister!" one of the bees yelled as she returned to the group.

 Looking at the scene, Ambi was amazed at how fiercely the other bees defended her. Their ferocity nearly matched that of the hornets. "If only there were more of you…" she thought. "We might win if there were more of you, then none of you would have to die," she thought forlornly.

"Those were just the head of the swarm!" Kue's voice interrupted her thoughts. "The rest of them will be upon us in seconds! Everyone, swerve to the right to fly under that blue vehicle over there, and be prepared to fly up the moment that we emerge from underneath it!" yelled Kue.

As Ambi prepared to follow the order, Kue began to yell in her direction. "Ambi, these vehicles have an opening to a warm, hollow space inside of them on their fronts. When we fly up, you are to fly into that opening. Crawl as deep into it as you can, then hide while the vehicle carries you to its destination. The scent of the fumes from the vehicle's internal workings should hide your scent. We will keep our pursuers occupied as long as we can while you escape, got it?"

Ambi couldn't believe that it was already time for her to say goodbye to Kue and the other bees. Her body felt tight and her eyes stung, and she could hardly muster up a single word in response. But before she could respond, they had already dived under the blue car.

"Now, Ambi!" Kue yelled.

At once, all the bees flew up from underneath the car, startling its driver and causing him to spill his coffee.

"Kue!" Ambi yelled, looking out at the other bees from behind the car's grille. But she couldn't see them anymore. They were already gone. In the next instant, she saw the hornet swarm fly out from under the car. They were much faster than the bees, and they couldn't move up as quickly as the bees did. Ambi saw many of them fly directly into the busy intersection and splatter against the cars crossing the intersection.

"Kue… so that was your plan," she thought. "They might actually have a fighting chance, now… I hope I see them again."

HONK!

The sudden sound of the car's horn startled Ambi, probably as much as the swarms of insects flying out from underneath the car startled its coffee-soaked driver. She flew deeper underneath the car's hood, tucking herself between two warm pieces of metal that smelled rather unpleasant.

"Beggars can't be choosers," she thought to herself, trying to hold her antennae away from the metal to avoid smelling it. The car suddenly started to move, and Ambi hid within its cavernous inner workings as it travelled. She didn't know for how long she was moving, nor did she know how far it carried her from her sisters and from her pursuers. It stopped and started several times, and she could hear the car's driver speaking to someone at several points. She didn't hear what he said, though. All she could focus on was her sisters' sacrifice for her.

"They've got Kue leading them… I'm sure they'll be fine," she reassured herself. At that moment, the car stopped moving and she heard the various metal parts around her stop moving as well. She heard the sound of the car's door opening and the driver stepping out of it. "I can't hide here forever," she thought to herself. "I should find something to eat so I can regain my strength, then get out of here. First, I need to look up at the sun to figure out which direction I need to go."

Still gripping her spear, she crawled out from under the hood of the car and let her body became engulfed in the sun's warm, yellow rays. Seeing that it was to her left, she knew where east was and knew to travel south to get back to the Amazon. She flew into the sky to look for a flower she could eat from and saw a scene quite different from the bustling city she had been flying above earlier that day. Beneath her was a beautiful arrangement of buildings made out of red bricks with several trees and grassy lawns surrounding them. Instead of vehicles, there were hundreds of people walking around to move from place to place. Instead of an arrangement of concrete and glass towers with a black and grey pathway between them, there were ornate brown buildings surrounded by grass, trees, bushes, statues, and flowers. "Whatever this place is, it must be quite important," Ambi thought. And then, suddenly, she saw it: a beautifully arranged garden filled with numerous colorful flowers.

"I'll rest there," she thought. "It seems rather out-of-the-way and I don't see many humans there." As she approached the garden, her eyes locked on a patch of marigolds next to a small, artificial waterfall. "It's a real shame that nobody's here. They don't know what they're missing out on," she happily thought to herself as she took in the scenery, her mind briefly distracted from the loss of her comrades. "No…" she corrected herself, "it's a real shame I couldn't share this place with them… with Kue…"

When she finished drinking from one of the marigolds, she stopped to rest on a nearby leaf and absorb some energy from the garden. Whoever organized this garden clearly knew a great deal about plants and nature, and Ambi felt proud that she could enjoy the fruits of their labor. As the tiny, green orbs of energy that only she could see flowed from the various plants in the garden into her, she felt a renewed sense of vigor and a greater appreciation for whoever maintained this garden.

Suddenly, the sound of something clattering to the ground right beside her startled her. She immediately stopped absorbing the energy from the garden and turned to face the source of the noise she had just heard. It was a woman with long, brown hear wearing a bright yellow shirt and blue pants. Despite the sun shining directly on her face, she was fast asleep on a warm, white chair. The noise appeared to be the container full of brown liquid that had just slipped out of her hand. Her beautiful, pale face was illuminated by the sun's warm rays for what seemed to be the first time in weeks, and even asleep she seemed to enjoy every second of it.

As she gazed upon the woman resting peacefully, a shadow crept up from behind her and before she knew it, a pair of long, orange mandibles had enclosed around her body.