To Buzz or Not to Buzz

Chet looked lost and in a daze. Alex walked up to him.

"Hey, let's get back to the portal. What are you doing? You're just looking around. It's freaking me out," Alex said to Chet.

"What happened?" Chet said. "I've never felt anything like that before."

"It was a fear blast. Some of the aliens can do that. You'll have to push through it a little longer next time so I can get a psychic shield on your head before you take off," Alex said.

Man, this whole only two skills at a time thing was getting real old real fast. Maybe he could use more skills at a time now since he was a higher level. He hadn't tried to yet.

Alex concentrated on holding up his forcefield and psychic shield at the same time, then he aimed his hand at a tree and tried to telekinetically punch it.

A fist-sized chunk blew out of the tree trunk. Wow, he was stronger than he thought. And he could use three skills at a time. Alex tried four.

With his forcefield and psychic shield still up, Alex equipped telekinetic body and tried to form telekinetic spikes. The mini forcefield spikes started to form, but then they would fail and disappear.

Damn. Three was his new limit. Well, at least he knew he could do three. Now he could defend physically, mentally, and attack at the same time.

Whoo! Things were going to be a lot easier from now on. Alex did a little dance and immediately regretted it. He was glad no one was around to see it except Chet. No one would believe him because he was a criminal.

"Come on, Chet. Let's go. Turns out I can defend our bodies and our minds, and I can still fight! I'm putting both defenses up now, so you shouldn't have to worry about the fear thing for a while," Alex said as he put up the defenses.

"That's good cuz I hated that. It made me see my mom. She was really mad I didn't clean my room. I haven't felt that scared in a long time. Ever since she died," Chet said.

"I'm sorry, man," Alex said.

"It's ok. It happens to all of us," Chet said.

"Still, it sucks, and I feel for you. If it makes you feel any better, my parents are probably dead too, with the alien invasion going on," Alex said.

"It doesn't," Chet chuckled. "But thanks. I appreciate you trying."

"No problem," Alex said.

When they got back to the portal, Alex said, "Do you want the gun?"

"No man. I got my butterfly knife. That's all I need," Chet said as he flipped open the knife and flipped it closed. Thank gods he didn't do all of that fancy flipping non sense or he might've made Alex feel like less of a man.

"Alright. I guess we're just leaving guns on the ground now for any kid to find," Alex said as he stepped through the portal, but more carefully this time. Good thing too, because there was a little bit of a drop to it.

Alex noticed and prepared his body for the drop, but Chet tripped and fell on his face.

"Are you ok, man? You didn't hurt your ankle, did you?" Alex said.

"No. The only thing that's hurt is my ego," Chet said as he got up and brushed himself off. He had some sort of yellow pollen all over the front of his body.

Chet looked around and said, "I don't think we're in Kansas, motherfucker." Chet looked at Alex. "Did I quote that movie correctly?"

"Close enough," Alex said.

There were huge flowers growing out of the ground the size of trees that towered over them. Big chunks of pollen flowed freely through the air like cherry blossoms on a windy day.

And then he heard it. Buzzing. These must be some massive bees to pollinate these flowers, Alex thought. Sure enough, a bee the size of a helicopter came into view and traveled from flower to flower.

Alex and Chet weren't bothering the bee in anyway, so it shouldn't have even noticed them, let alone attacked them, but it did anyway as soon as it spotted them.

The massive bee came down and landed, shaking the ground and knocking Alex and Chet off their feet. It tried to bite Chet with its mandibles, but Chet sped around behind it and started stabbing it with his knife.

It didn't do much other than anger the bee. It turned around and smacked Chet with one of its legs. Chet went flying until he hit the stalk of one of the flowers and bounced off of it.

Alex started forming telekinetic spikes to shoot at the bee, but a woman came out from between some giant blades of grass and stood in front of Alex and stared down the bee.

The beautiful woman had pointed ears like an elf and golden hair. Her flowing white dress fluttered in the wind.

"Buzz Buzz! Stop it right this instant! They are hurting no one. I know you want to protect me, but I can't stand to see you get hurt when you fight for me." The woman said as she walked up to the bee and hugged its head.

It nuzzled against the woman. They seemed to have some sort of deep bond that Alex couldn't understand but immediately accepted as reality. He was seeing it right in front of his eyes.

"I can heal him. May I approach?" Alex said.

"You may," the woman said.

Alex walked up to the bee and found the stab wounds where Chet dug his knife into its side. Alex first performed a bio-scan to get an idea of the material of the bee's body and where it was damaged.

After performing the scan, Alex worked on healing any internal injury and closing the wound. It took a minute but he did it. The woman walked over to him.

"I saw what you did. That was a miracle! How can you do such things? Can you teach me?" The woman said.

"I don't know. Maybe?" Alex said.

"I would love it if you did!" The woman said.

"I'll try," Alex said.

Chet walked up to Alex slowly and he whispered, "Who is this lady? And what is she saying? It just sounds like vowels to me."

"Oh. Huh. Maybe it's a side effect of my psionic abilities, but I can understand her perfectly. Hold on, let me do a thing," Alex said. He activated his active translation ability and extended a telepathic conduit from his mind to Chet's so Chet could understand everything that was being said.

"You should be able to understand her now," Alex said.

"Buzz Buzz, go fly and be safe," the woman said. The bee took off into the air with a rush of wind from it's flapping wings.

She looked at Alex and Chet and said, "My name is Amirilia. What's yours?"

"My name is Alex, and this is Chet. He can't speak your language yet, but I'm going to try to teach it to him, like I'm going to try to teach healing to you," Alex said.

"Oh good! Follow me. I'll take you to my village," Amirilia said.

She disappeared off into the tall grass, and Alex and Chet followed.