They decided to hurry, and just went through one of the entrances they had smoked. The fire hadn't spread enough to block access. Someone else would have been worried about how to get out, but Lius.h.i.+ wasn't. He was certain that the stairs or elevator shafts would still be accessible. They could leave through the upper floors, and the mechanical arm of the Doomsday Ride could pick them up.

He was annoyed to not have a helmet with light, and had to rely on Lu holding a flashlight behind him. The visibility was already low, and the smoke didn't help. If not for their masks they wouldn't be able to breath, and even with that there was a limit to how long they should stay inside. They didn't have a supply of fresh air after all. Another thing Lius.h.i.+ added on his mental list of things to aquire/upgrade.

While the entrance was large enough to pa.s.s slightly hunched, they had to move on all 4 inside. Each original floor was divided in 2 subfloors. Some walls had been pierced, and some hallways had been sealed. It made the navigation into the building more difficult.

Lu suppressed her disgust and horror as they crawled in the hive. She was well aware that everything around her, and the ground she had her hands and knees on, was made of human flesh. It also increased her hostility toward mutant bees. Lius.h.i.+, on the other hand, didn't concern himself with that, too busy concentrating on what was in front of himself. Slowly, they advanced deeper and deeper within the hive.

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At some point, he had to stop, and they could hear some activity nearby. A few times they found themselves face to face with the remaining beasts. One or 2 needles in the head would stop them, and the axe strike would finish them. They seemed to be attracted to the low humming sound of the needlers when they were close, but the configuration of the hive kept them from swarming the intruders. They were also by the smoke in the air.

Then, the duo reached a place underground and they stopped. They could hear a lot of movement ahead of them. The Sta.r.s.eed informed Lius.h.i.+ that the mutant core was also ahead. He turned to Lu and motioned for her to come next to him. There wasn't enough room to be side by side, so they had to squeeze themsleves against each other. If not for the amount of clothing they had on them and the situation, Lius.h.i.+ would have enjoyed himself. But he needed to talk to her, so he whispered in her ear.

"The boss is ahead, and isn't alone. We're going to get there really slowly, with the needlers and the flashlight off."

"Are you crazy?" she harshly whispered back in his ear. "We can barely see anything right now. You want us to enter the queen's room blind, without guns?"

"I don't want them to notice us before we can even get in the room. As for the lack of sight, my ability can make up for that. To remodel items and materials, I must scan them first. I can scan the area ahead of me, and it would work like a sonar. With no sounds or light, they won't notice it."

The Sta.r.s.eed wouldn't have found him without some long range sensory capabilities. Despite having it's abilities restrained by the energy cost, its sensors were still powerfull and advanced. Lius.h.i.+ intended to use its pa.s.sive sensors, which were better than human senses.

He could have used them from the start... If he knew he could. It had never occured to him until now that it was possible. If he didn't ask the Sta.r.s.eed, he doubted he would have in the future. He would have already made equipment to counter that problem. He added to his mental list to experiment with what he could do combined with the capabilities of the Sta.r.s.eed.

Lu looked at him in wonder, then slowly nodded. They turned off their needlers and the flashlight. Suddenly plunged in total darkness, in the iner part of a hive of giant mutant bees, was far from rea.s.suring. The m.u.f.fled sound of nearby beasts didn't help. While Lu was still eager to fight, she couldn't help but press herself a little more to Lius.h.i.+'s side.

Lius.h.i.+ closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again, his pupils faintly glowed for a second, a glow that came from the inermost part of his eyes. It was the Sta.r.s.eed connecting with his retine and optic nerve. His vision, which was non-existant before, had turned into shades of dark red. It was more defined, with a better perception of depth and distances. The Sta.r.s.eed then connected to his eardrums and accoustic nerves, sharpening his earing.

He held his companion arm and moved ahead of her, then placed her hand on his ankle. They resumed their advance, much more slowly than before. Thankfully, the material that made the hive didn't make as much noise as ordinary construction materials.

They arrived at a corner where there was some kind of organic membrane acting like a veil, and behind it the tunnel widened and led to a large room. Lius.h.i.+ stopped at the veil, and brough Lu next to him, making her touch the veil so she would be aware of it. He slightly opened the veil to see the rest of the place.

There were several other tunnels entrances around the room There was less smoke in the air than in the tunnels, probably due to the veils. There were dozens of mutant bees crawling on the ground, flying in the air, or staying on overpa.s.ses near the ceiling. In a corner without any other tunnel entrance, was Lius.h.i.+'s target. He was barely able to see it due to all the activity around. It was large, human sized, with underdevelopped wings and inflated abdomen, its back turned to him, busy doing something. He didn't know what, but it made him very uneasy due to some disturbing sense of familiarity.

He closed the veil and motionned for Lu to back off. Once far enough, they stopped and he turned on the flashlight, pointing toward the ground to avoid blinding her.

"There are about 60 mutant bees over there, as well as the queen" he said in a low voice. "There are several tunnels that lead to the room so they might be able to get some back up. If we attack, we can expect to fight up to 80 mutant bees. Maybe more."

"Then we do the same thing we did this afternoon, bait them into a place where we can fight them one by one. We just lead them to the tunnel, we alternate between close-range and long-range so we don't get tired fighting in close."

"Not this time. There will be more coming than earlier, and enough room for 2 of them to attack at the same time. I have a body armor, you don't. I'll stay in close range, you use both needlers to suppress them."

After giving her his needler and all his amnutions, and taking the machete, they moved back to the veil, of course with the flashlight turned off. But with the needlers on. He wanted to move just as slowly as before, just so the appearance of the needler noise wouldn't really be noticed. And it worked.

The moment they pa.s.sed the veil, the battle would start. Lu would need the light so he will have a second to turn it on and put it on the ground in a position that would benefit her the most. So he held it in hand, and both the machete and the axe on his other side under his armpit. He put his hand on Lu's shoulder and made a silent countdown by tapping her shoulder with one less finger each time.

After one, in a single moment, he pa.s.sed through the veil crouched, lit the flashlight and placed it on the ground, and armed himself. All movement froze in the room for a moment. Lu didn't waste the chance as she followed him, and fired on the nearby beasts, seriously wounding them or killing them. Then the rest of the beasts moved as one toward the 2 intruders.

Lu became deathly white at the sight, and her grip on the needlers tightened.

"RRRHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"

And she roared in defiance.

"Schriiiiiiii!!"

In response, the queen released a small scream. A command. The sound unsettled the duo. It wasn't harsh to the ears, no. It was different from what they expected. Not close enough to that of a beast. Too similar to that of a human.

She aimed at the flying ones and took some of them out of the air. Meanwhile, Lius.h.i.+ was dealing with the ones on the ground. Lu's roar had actually lifted his mood a little, and raised his fighting spirit further. He was hacking and slas.h.i.+ng furiously, trying to injure multiple beasts with each swings of his machete, and killing with each axe chop. Sometimes a front kick was needed to keep some manouvring s.p.a.ce in front of him.

After 30 seconds of battle, and as many killed beasts, Lu suddenly backed down to the veil.

"I need to reload!!"

"Hurry!!"

A small wall of corpses was growing in front of him. It mean that he no longer had to worry about attacks on his legs, but it also meant that the beasts would be better placed to strike his head and neck. He also wouldn't be able to kick them back. The moment Lu's cover fire stopped, he was no longer aiming to kill. He had to frantically move his arm around in an effort to keep them at bay, and was tiring quickly under that pressure.

"Argh!!"

Within the few seconds it took for Lu to reload, his arms, shoulders and left cheek had been sliced. The biker's armor did its job to protect the forearms and shoulders from receiving more than a flesh wound, but his right biceps and his cheek nasty cuts. His right arm was weakened, and he could no longer afford to move it around. He grabbed one of the injured beasts by the neck with said arm, dropping his axe in the process, and used its body as a s.h.i.+eld.

Lius.h.i.+ froze in a mixture of disbelief, hoplessness and resignation when 2 beasts pa.s.sed his defenses and went for his neck and tights. At the last moment they received nails in their heads at near point-blank range. Before he could react, Lu had turned the needlers toward th hole in the defenses and showered the coming beasts with deadly nails. Only then did Lius.h.i.+ resume the fight.

"Schriiiiiii!!"

At the command of the queen, the remaining beasts stopped their attack and moved back toward her. Lu also stopped firing on them. The duo were curious, but also worried about what it wanted to do. They adavanced 2 steps to better view the whole room, their guard still up.

"You are quite persistent" said a broken male voice from behind the wall of mutant bees.

They scattered around the room, allowing the duo to see the corner where the queen was. Lius.h.i.+ froze and dropped his meat s.h.i.+eld. Lu picked up the flashlight and turned it toward said corner. She gasped at the sight.

There, in front of their eyes, was a plump, naked man, seemingly in his fifties. He was hunched, and on his back was what Lius.h.i.+ saw when he got his first look at the room. His skin had turned completly yellow, with some black strips. Fused on the man's back side was a bee's body. The head of the beast fused with that of the man, its insect eyes emerging from the top of the man's forehead, the middle part was fused to the bust, and the abdomen to the rest of his upper body and extending a bit beyond.

The hybrid creature was hunched over a naked woman, holding her by the waist and repeatadly raming its little member into her. The woman was barely responding, and people would have though she was dead if they didn't hear her m.u.f.fled grunts and moans once in a while. The hybrid groaned, and his little member enlarged. Something solid was clearly pa.s.sing inside to be deposited in the woman's womb. The woman released a pitiful cry of pain as she was momentary stretched further than she could usually handle, and judging by the b.u.mp on her belly, it wasn't the first deposit.

The hybrid released her, some s.e.xual fluids, as well as blood leaking from her, and she fell limply to the ground. It pushed her further into the corner, where the figures of other women with large bellies could be seen. Unlike Lu, who had to rely on the flashlight to see, Lius.h.i.+, with his Sta.r.s.eed enhanced senses, could see just how bad he girls were. The hybrid then turned fully to the 2 intruders.

Lius.h.i.+ understood now why he felt uneasy the first he saw it. It was already busy raping the woman, and the slight noise he heard beyond the buzzing of the beasts was the sound of hips slapping against a rear. Behind him, Lu released a strangled cry of horror, fury and disgust. Her aghast face blanked for a moment as she recognised the man. Former man.

"Mister Ruogang?" she asked in disbelief.

"Ruogang?" it slowly replied, in a slightly robotic manner, as if speaking had become something foreign to him. "That was my former name."

Huo Ruogang was one of the beekeepers of the town. People knew him well enough as he was one of the prime supplier of honey in the town. And Lu was quite fond of honey, so she was used to see him every so often. He used to be a kind man. Lu's feelings were in complete disarray, and the stress of the past few days didn't help. But she still needed some answers. So, with her head down, she asked questions.

"What happened to you?"

"The day things changed, I changed too" it said, seemingly struggling to find what to say. "And so did the queen of the hive I took care of. She attacked me, struck me in the back. Then we changed again. We merged. I am the hive king."

Grief and fury warred within Lu's head.

"If you are the king" she started in a low voice. "You control the rest of these beasts." she continued as her voice rose. "You let them attack and kill people!" she screamed. "Then... Then the women..." she finished, her voice barely above a whisper.

"My hive is new in this changed world. To survive, I need to strenghten my hive, raise our numbers and eliminate all threats."