Chapter 3- Perilous Situation

The hive on the outside is covered by one giant ugly flower that has its vines covering the entire building. There is actually 5 more stories underneath the ground, I'm not sure what this building was before but it seemed to be a oligarchs secret hideout.

The vines are intertwined with sticky runny honey-like goo and hardened amber. Or at least that what it looked like. It looked the exact same inside except in the farms. The farms had your typical yellow-orange hexagonal holes filled with honey, larvae and pupae.

There were also new pods that were red and blue. I assume those were for higher tier bees since the holes were larger and and protected.

After greeting the guards by touching our antenas, super weird right? I think I'm starting to lose my sense of being a human, I don't even feel anything seeing a human corpse. I was allowed into the hive. 

The cafeteria had a closed off area of piled up bits of fleshy parts and meat. Those foods were clean or at least, the cleanest they can be with the lowest amount of radiation. 

I decided to use half of my monthly ration of food and eat them all in one sitting. The other bees buzzed around me, laughing at my foolishness. 

I ignore them and finish it before night comes. This was actually one of the most dangerous times for insects, the aerial monsters swoop in the night to have a feast. I flew back to my pod on the top level of the building.

The mutant birds and bats learned not to mess with us though. We have strong exoskeletons and powerful soldier bees with sharp mandibles and venomous stingers that can be replaced over time. Their hide are easily pierced by our stingers and mandibles.

I punch a hole out and saw the dark night sky dotted with a hazy sky. It was going to rain acid again. My room was pretty small for someone my size. But it would've been huge for the old me.

In the distance I saw some dark figures of a bee but it looked different from all the bees I have seen so far. It was sleeker and thinner.

Suddenly smelled an alarming pheromone it urged me and the others to go out of the hive and prepare for an attack. My heart was palpitating with fear, I knew from my highschool studies that wasps are naturally fiercer and stronger than bees.

I definitely did not want to die again after only being alive for only a few months. I tried to resist the pheromones that's clogging up the hive. It was suffocating.

I went to the basement where the queen resided. A couple of miner and consort bees were already scraping away on the cement. She did not notice my presence as I stopped responding to the pheromones.

I already trained myself to resist pheromones produced by bees. The queen bee was busy with herself so she didn't waste energy producing pheromones.

The cement broke apart easily, it seemed like they already had an escape route carved a long time ago.

However, much to my demise, some soldier bees noticed my presence and tried to question me with their antennae.

"Hey who are? Go back up there?" A soldier bee two times my size yelled at me while brandishing his extremely sharp mandibles.

"Sorry, sorry I was transporting food when the attack happened, I was just head up."

I lied and the soldier bee seemed to believe me. He pushed me back up the slimy stairs and immediately flew to the escape hole. There was no way for me to escape now, they cut some vine and everything above them collapsed filling up the escape route.

I decided to brave myself and fight for fellow comrades. On the second floor, newborn broods were quickly being transported to various small escape routes hoping they will find their way to safety.

I thought we could at least stand a chance, but it turns out that the wasps outnumbered us. The only troops keeping us alive for now was the mix-breed human-bee creatures. 

I was horrified at the sheer number of wasps covering the bright night of stars with their bodies. They quickly formed an oval around the building and started to rub against each other.

This attack was actually a trait of bees but now they had them. Before the radiation and disease, certain races of bees would form a shield around their enemies and rub their legs muscles to create friction that heated up the enemy.

Now our move was used against us. It was seriously hot inside the wasp-made cocoon. The slimy honey-like amber helped a little by trapping heat. I saw many worker bees collapsing due to heat or the loss of their stinger. 

I saw a chance to become powerful, I quickly went around the humid environment and sucked up all of the lingering mist. 

My body steamed red, I was intaking too much mist at a time but I had no choice. I was either going to die with my comrades or die using my comrades.

I felt weak and powerful at the same time. I felt my soul or mind becoming more powerful. I flew back into the hive on the last floor which was still cool.

I closed my eyes and envisioned my body, I changed my chitin skeleton and layered it and making it denser than a soldier bee. I changed my jaw and made it larger and increased the size and sharpness of my mandibles.

I also changed my front legs with tiny stingers on the tips. It could regenerate and retract as I wished. I also changed my butt stinger larger and sharper, obviously severing the neuron causing that would kill me if I lost the stinger. 

Now I was super decked. But strangely I did not immediately grow larger or change. The hunger pangs was killing me urging me to take a bite out of anything. 

I crawled my self up to the cafeteria which was filled with dying bees. The mind bees stilled stayed strong and defended the hive. This time I laugh at them, at their weakness of not being sentient as I am.

I go through the door that lead to the irradiated meat unhindered and indulged myself for the longest time. 

As I ate, my body underwent major changes. It started my organs becoming stronger all the way to my exoskeleton becoming 5x denser and 2x thicker. I looked like a soldier bee on steroids. 

This time I released my pheromones and urged 5 mind bees to follow me. I was not going to last long, the new body and upgrade needed time to consolidate, I did not have the luxury of time as the enemy is already breaking down our doors.

The mind bees rushed out with my carrying my now weak body. They willed the remaining living bees to all rush into a single point on the wasp-shield. 

All of them died, the 5 mind bees also suffered immense burns. Luckily I broke out with 3 remaining mind bees. The entire bee population was decimated with only the queen, her broods and I surviving.

Now the acid rain started to fall, drizzling, then droplets, then pouring.