The Sun Shines Night And Day (IC)

[Gizmo]

What...? Doesn't sound mechanical. Looking about, Trevor ducked into the generator shed and knelt beside his stainless steel toolboxes. Ignoring the open case, he unlatched its twin, revealing a familiar set of equipment. Within moments, the featureless black mask of Midnight joined the utility belt as his waist as he moved swiftly back outside. The rough, organic nature of the shed's wall made it easy to scale as he perched atop its roof and scanned the area for the source of the buzzing.

[Electra]

As soon as Trevor vaulted onto the roof he came face to... face? with the source of the now very loud buzzing. A massive bee, easily the size of a semi-truck, hovered above the cottage, turning this way and that as it looked for something. It seemed surprised to see him, as much as it was possible to read the expression of an enormous insect. "WHO IZZZZ YOU!" it demanded, its voice buzzing and booming like a faulty loudspeaker. "WHERE IZZZ FLEUR, FAZZZELEZZZ BIPED? ZZZHE ZZZHOULD BE HERE!" Now the bee sounded upset, which was probably not a good thing.

[Gizmo]

Midnight paused for a moment, taking a step back on the roof. ...the hell? He seemed to recall something from the news that summer about massive insects but he certainly hadn't expected to run into one, any more than he'd expected it to talk. Fortunately, the young man's considerable aplomb was only taxed by this turn of events, not broken. "Midnight," he replied indicating himself. "Friend of Fleur de Joie. Isn't here now. ...why?"

[Electra]

"WE NEEDZZZ TO ZZZPEAK TO HER!" the bee buzzed with great agitation. "THERE IZZZ A ZZZTRANGER AT ZZHE HIVEZZZ! A ZZQUIZZHY BIPED WHO IZZZ NOT FRIENZZZ! ZZHE ZZHOULD BEE HERE!" The massive bee did an aerial loop, still looking for the missing plant controller. Even at a distance, even with his mask on, Trevor could feel the wind from those massive humming wings.

[Gizmo]

One of the survivors went exploring... Blocking some of the wind with one hand, Midnight called to the fretting bee. "Calm down. Please." Taking a deep breath, he decided to just roll with the situation for now. "I'll contact Fleur. Just... stay there for now." Leaping acrobatically down from the shed, he quickly retrieved the radio the botanist had described and relayed the situation to her. "Don't like use of 'squishy'."

[Electra]

"Oh dear," Stesha replied, her voice crackly over the walkie-talkie. "One of them must have looped around when they were exploring, otherwise they'd have walked right in front of my house. I really need to pay better attention!" A moment later, she appeared in the middle of the cottage, stepping right out of one of the walls. "But don't worry about the "squishy" thing, she advised him with a half-smile. "It's what they call all humans who don't have visible superpowers or costumes. They learned it from the Beekeeper, I'm afraid."

She walked over to where the giant bee was hovering outside the door, trying to peer in with one huge multi-faceted eye. "Is that you, Beelizabeth?" she asked. "I'm very sorry the stranger is bothering you. Has he hurt anything?"

"NO, HE IZZ HIDING," Beelizabeth told Stesha, bobbing in place to emphasize that fact. "HE IZZ YELLING THREATZZZ, HE ZZAYZZ OTHERZZ WILL COME WITH FIRE! WE WILL ZZZTOP THEM!"

"Nobody is going to set fire to anything or anyone," Stesha assured the bee hastily. "I'll come now and see what's happening." She looked over to Trevor. "Would you like to come along?"

[Gizmo]

"Suppose I'd better," Midnight answered Fleur, opening and closing his hands absently in the more flexible but less insulated gloves he'd switched to. Observing the massive bee hovering outside the door, the young man tired to recall any entomological facts he might have picked up during his studies. Not coming up with much, he simply tipped his ushanka forward slightly to Beelizabeth in a respectful gesture. "Miss."

[Electra]

Rather than teleporting this time, Fleur walked outside and scrambled up the bee's huge, fuzzy back, a number of vines and one small tree leaning in to give her an assist in the awkward climb. Once she was seated, she offered a hand to Trevor, who was far more nimble and didn't really need the help. Beelizabeth was a surprisingly fast flyer, even with passengers, and soon they were in the air and speeding over the winter landscape towards a dark spot in the distance! As they approached, it became clear that they were heading to a giant earthen beehive, perhaps twenty stories tall and as long as a city block, surrounded by smaller, less sophisticated hives.

There were giant bees everywhere. It looked like there were more than fifty massive bees buzzing around, creating a ruckus like that of dozens of planes taking off. Some seemed to just be speeding around randomly, but most of them were gathered around one of the outbuildings near the main hive. Trevor's tactical training let him see that they'd formed a fairly efficient perimeter, hemming in whatever was inside that structure.

[Gizmo]

Midnight reflected that his choice of hat for this trip had been fortuitous. Besides the cold, it would have been extremely difficult to keep his fedora atop his head while seated so close to Beelizabeth's rapid wings. He pointed silently down at the gathering of giant bees patrolling the relatively smaller structure, although there was little chance either Fleur or their ride had failed to notice. The sheer number of the massive creatures was an astounding sight, as was the great, mountain like hive.

[Electra]

"Welcome to the giant beehive!" Stesha yelled over the noise, half-laughing at the inanity of her own statement in the face of the impressive view. "It's normally not so busy!" Beelizabeth flew with them into one of the ground-level tunnels at the foot of the hive, speeding through sudden pitch blackness down corridors that curved and sloped downward into the ground itself. The occasional patch of phosphorescent rock or lichen produced a small amount of light, but it wasn't much. After the noise outside, the tunnel was almost shockingly quiet, except for a low buzzing in the distance. "We're going to see the queen," Stesha explained, speaking normally now.

The corridor eventually opened into an extremely large chamber, easily two or three football fields across. The phosphorescence was more concentrated here, so they could see dimly what was going on. At the center of the chamber was an absolutely massive bee, at least twenty feet tall and a hundred feet long, wingless, and with legs that looked like they would barely hold her. A handful of giant bees surrounded her, grooming her and feeding her.

"Your majesty," Stesha said politely as she dismounted. "I'm sorry to hear you have a problem with a human intruder. This is a friend of mine, Midnight. He's here to help as well."

[Gizmo]

"Miss," Midnight reiterated politely to Beelizabeth in thanks as he smoothly made his way to the chamber floor after Fleur. Turning to the truly gargantuan being before them, the young man dipped stiffly forward from the waist. "Majesty," he greeted in his rumbling baritone, trusting it would be better to leave the bulk of the audience to the botanist the bees were already familiar with. If the queen was anything like human royalty, the last thing they needed was an accidental faux pas on his part. It helped that the entire scenario left him a little speechless.

[Electra]

The Queen's voice was even louder than the loudspeaker voices of the other bees, positively resonating off the curved walls of the giant cavern. "THIZZ BIPED MUZZZT BE ZZZTOPPED," she told Fleur firmly. "I HAVE ZZAID THAT NOBEE IZZ TO ATTACK IT UNTIL YOU ARRIVE, BUT TIME IZZZ OF THE EZZZENZZ. THE HIVE IZZ MUCH DIZZTURBED. I WAZZZ UNAWARE THERE WAZZ A ZZTRANGER LOOZZ."

"I understand," Fleur said with a nod. "I just learned that there are more humans on the planet besides myself and my guests. I'll have a talk with them and make sure that they understand you're not to be bothered. I'm sure I can count on you to do the same with the bees. There is so much room on this world, there should be no conflict between anyone for space."

"WE ARE HAPPY TO HAVE THIZZ GOOD PLAZZ TO LIVE," the Queen intoned. "WE WILL NOT ZZTART FIGHTZZ WIZZ ZHE ZQUIZHY BIPEDZ. BUT ZHAT ONE MUZZT GO!"

"We're on it," Stesha promised. She put a hand on Trevor's shoulder, and a moment later they were outside the hive again, a few hundred feet from the bee perimeter surrounding the embattled hivelet. "I suppose the first step is to talk to him somehow?" Stesha said, somewhat doubtfully.

[Gizmo]

Midnight shook his head slightly, recovering from the Queens resonant intonation. "Could just sneak in. Knock him out," the young man offered absently, adjusting the earflaps of his ushanka. Glancing over at Fleur, he shrugged, a little defensively. "Be easy. Carry him back to the enclosure, deal with it there." It might not have been the most diplomatic approach, but it certainly had the edge in efficiency.

[Electra]

Stesha wrung her hands, frowning at the hivelet, then at Trevor, then back at the hive. Even though they were supposedly allies, the double row of patrolling bees was a rather intimidating sight, to say nothing of the noise. "Do you really think that's the best idea?" she asked, sounding uncertain, but not impossible to convince. "I would rather get him out without anyone being hurt, but I can't see in there, and I'm worried about getting too close to anyone who might be violent these days." Her wry expression revealed how difficult that made superhero work.

[Gizmo]

Midnight looked from Fleur's uncertain expression down to the sub-hive and let out a soft, much put upon sigh. "I'll go talk to him," he told the plant controller with the tone of someone resigned to doing the right thing despite an easier option. The dark of the earthen structure wouldn't bother him in the slightest, and he had nothing to fear from a single, panicked opponent. Folding his arms, he warned, "Might still end up knocking him out. Might as well give him a chance, first."

[Electra]

Stesha smiled a little at that. "Well, at least we'll know we tried. Thank you, Midnight. Let me just tell the bees." She put two fingers in her mouth and let out a loud whistle, one that cut through the buzz enough to get the attention of some of the bees. After a short conversation with a bee named Beeatriz, Stesha convinces the patrolling bees to back off a little way, and to clear a space for Midnight to pass through. "The hivelets aren't much," Stesha advised Trevor before he went. "Just empty hills, really. The bees didn't know how to build properly."

[Gizmo]

With a grunt of affirmation, Midnight started down the opened space, this pace steady and even. As he walked, wisps of inky mist began to trail from openings in his clothing, twisting into thicker streams as a roiling cloud formed about his feet. By the time he'd closed half the distance, the young man had transformed into an indistinct figure of pitch black, sliding inexorably toward its destination. Once he entered the hivelet, all that was readily visible were the twin, red slits of his eyes. Finding the man holed up inside with ease, the specter spoke in a soft, grating tone. "Need to talk."

[Electra]

The man inside was obviously cut from the same cloth as the other survivors, wearing the same rough and worn clothing, though his boots were in better shape than many of the others'. He was already huddled up in the most defensible position in the hivelet, behind a little mound of rocks. He looked absolutely terrified to see Midnight approaching, before he ducked behind the pile. "I've got a gun!" he yelled in a shaky voice. "Don't get any closer or I'll send you to the bomb!"

[Gizmo]

Midnight's response was a derisive snort. "Please." The ominous eyes disappeared in the darkness. A moment a later, there was a rush of movement to the terrified man's right and the next thing he knew his weapon was clattering to the dirt floor and his arm was pinned firmly behind his back. "You need to calm down," the wraith like figure advised in a flat deadpan lacking all inflection. "Now."

[Electra]

The man cried out in terror at the lightning-quick attack, barely making a token effort to hold onto the ancient gun he'd been wielding. Trevor found himself having to modulate his own attack or risk breaking the man's stick-thin arm. "Oh god, oh god, oh god," the poor unfortunate babbled, "I didn't mean it, I didn't want to come here at all, I'll do anything, just please don't kill me!"

[Gizmo]

"Just. Calm. Down," Midnight insisted, growing a little frustrated. Reassurance was not his forte by any stretch of the imagination. "Not going to kill you, not even going to hurt you. Just needed to make sure you didn't hurt anyone else." Releasing the man's arm, he indicated the opening in the hive wall that led outside. "Bees only want you out. Going to take you back to your people. If you can stay calm."

[Electra]

The man stopped struggling quickly, though his eyes were still round as saucers. Up close, Trevor judged him to maybe be in his mid-twenties. "The bees," he muttered, as though merely saving the words might invoke one. "Oh god, oh god... how are we going to get away from them?" he asked anxiously. "They're everywhere! I've heard stories about bees, but I never realized how big they were!"

[Gizmo]

Midnight ran a hand over his lack of face wearily, mentally counting backward from ten. "Listen. The bees want you to leave." Crossing his arms partly to keep himself from simply knocking the man out and having done with it, he tried to explain, keeping his words slow and precise. "You invaded their hive and started yelling threats. Scared them. Already explained to the Queen it was a misunderstanding. Can just walk out."

[Electra]

The man wavered indecisively, looking from Trevor to the door and back again until the urge to render him unconscious was nearly overpowering. "All right," he finally said. "Just don't let them eat me!" The bees were waiting outside, watching from a short distance with their massive multifaceted eyes. The background buzzing increased appreciably as the two emerged, the bees obviously speaking amongst each other in their own language. The man quailed, covering his head, but eventually came along quietly, not even stopping to gather up his old gun.

Stesha was waiting beyond the bee-line, watching anxiously. She hurried up as the pair approached, looking them both over. "Did everything go smoothly?" she asked Trevor, checking to make sure he was in good condition still before turning her attention to the refugee. "Oh, you poor thing, you look just about done in," she tutted sympathetically. "We'll take you back to the rest of your group and find something for you to eat." The man, sensing a soft touch, all but fell into Stesha's arms, moaning something about giant bees.

[Gizmo]

Midnight made a flat noise in the back of his throat but nodded politely to Fleur. "Smoothly enough." The young man did feel for the traumatized survivor, who'd managed to hold himself together reasonably well all thing considered. Clearly he hadn't been in particularly good condition even before stumbling across the giant bees. Now that he'd been divested of his weapon and wasn't threatening anyone else, the young vigilante was considerably more inclined to be sympathetic.