Heretical Fishing

Book 2: Chapter 36: Invaders

When the pelican’s awareness returned, he was gliding on unseen currents high above the ocean. The sun was setting over the western mountains, and as he gazed at the surrounding sky, the colors struck him as... beautiful?

That was an odd thought—as was the recognition of thought at all, he realized.

Information was blossoming in his mind and as he continued riding unseen winds, the few drops of information grew into a trickle, then from a trickle to a small stream. Meanwhile, he gazed out at the wondrous landscape he found below him. The sky was a deep orange immediately around the sun’s enlarged form. It faded to mixed tones of pink and purple that slowly bled to blue to his east.

East...

He tasted the word as it coursed through his awareness. He had always inherently known directions—an inherent function of his body—yet he’d never had words to describe them. The sun lowered further, and the colors shifted again, the blue fading to lilac. As he circled in the wind, his burgeoning intelligence growing, his thoughts turned to the strange two-legged creature—human—that he’d been interacting with over the last few days.

It hadn’t been a mistake each time a fish had come sailing his way; the human had been intentionally sharing food. More astounding was the human’s actions when he’d been grappled by a crab that he now knew was intending to eat him—his base instincts had already assumed as much, but to have it confirmed made the pelican’s eye twitch. The human had saved him, even chastised the crab for the attempt—as had the spiky crab, who appeared to be the treacherous crustacean’s boss.

Thinking back on it, there had been several creatures that were also awakened. Their actions spoke of higher awareness, as well as physical prowess transcending the limits of regular animals.

The pelican flapped its wings, testing his body. It was hard to tell if it was his imagination, but he certainly felt larger andstronger. The pelican knew of one way to find out for certain; his eyes narrowed, and he angled down, pinning his wings in a dive toward the ground.

***

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She was the most desirable of her entire flock; her feathers were a beautiful brown, her body was large, and her muscles were strong, meaning she could fly for longer than any other female. Her mate was the strongest of their entire flock, making him the ideal partner. The moment he had chosen to be one of her suitors, the others hadn’t stood a chance. The courtship walks, swims, and flights had only solidified her choice, and after they had paired off, they’d left for distant lands to find a suitable nesting spot.

For weeks they’d flown, a feat only possible because of their physical superiority. They traveled far from any of the territories their species frequented, even crossing a vast stretch of ocean to arrive where they were. The instant she spied the cliff—and the pitifully decorated nest atop it—she knew they’d found the place to hatch a clutch of eggs.

As she sat in the nest they’d just finished renovating, her mate sat on the edge of the cliff, overlooking their lands. His feathers were slightly puffed, giving him an impressive silhouette against the setting sun.

***

Even rocketing toward the ground like an arrow in flight, information continued to pour into the pelican’s mind.

All manner of anecdotes, memories, and data points streamed in, finding places to nest within his brain. Some seemed useless, and he wondered at their necessity. Other information, however, was almost unbelievable in its timeliness. Focusing on one such memory, he adjusted his form as he approached his target. He retracted one leg while extending the other forward. His wings stretched behind him, pointing skyward. Finally, he tucked his head against his body with his beak running along his stomach and angled toward his leading foot.

His speed was tremendous, and his eyes sparkled with delight as his target got closer and closer.

Vengeance was nigh.

***

With her partner watching the land for danger, the female pelican laid her first egg.

She would lay more over the coming days, and given the strength of both parents, each of their glorious chicks should survive to maturity. She stood for a moment, gazing down to make sure it was still there. It was, and she honked her joy out at the world. Her partner looked back at her, and they shared a blissful moment, their pride overwhelming them.

With his eyes locked on her, the male pelican had no hope of seeing the blur of white, black, and yellow that rocketed from above to land a flying kick of immaculate form. A pitiful honk escaped her mate’s throat as he was thrown from the ledge, leaving behind only a handful of brown feathers—and his pride.

The female blinked at the bird now standing in his place amongst the falling feathers. He flapped his wings, and in his eyes, she saw death.

She took flight with honks of alarm, her maternal instincts entirely swept away before the weight of her self preservation.

***

The white and black pelican watched the brown interlopers retreat over the ocean.

Not wanting to injure a creature so far beneath him, he’d slowed himself at the last possible moment, and he was grateful he had. The blow had been more than he was expecting, and if he’d used even an ounce more strength, the male brown pelican would have been killed on impact. He collected his foe’s feathers from the ground and hopped toward his nest.

They had ruined his home, filling it with undesirable grasses that would itch his delicate feet. Worse, they’d left something else behind that made his blood boil—an egg. He looked down at it with conflicting thoughts. It was the product of his two hated enemies, yet given they’d come here to reproduce, it was likely fertile. He felt the urge to expel it, to fling it from his overhang and be done with it, but his newly found empathy railed against the compulsion.

He removed each offending strand of grass from his nest and replaced them with his brown trophies of war, ensuring he didn’t jostle or damage the egg. With grumpy resignation, he lowered himself to sit atop his adversaries’ progeny.

***

Within the seclusion of his hive, the bumblebee feasted.

He knew not where the delicious treat had come from, but neither did he care—such were not the musings of a bumblebee. Each time he filled his stomach and crop, he would return to his royal jelly, using the contents of his crop and some of the pollen on his legs to craft more of his magnum opus. When he would finish, his stomach and crop were both empty, so he refilled them once more.

He continued on like this all night, losing himself to the process as he gradually turned the sugar water into his mate-attracting royal jelly. When most of it was finished, and only a small section of one puddle remained, the bumblebee froze.

An alien sensation swelled within.

The bumblebee’s wings buzzed in anxiety, and he braced itself, waiting for an attacker to make itself known. Instead, a white light engulfed him, and a soft pop echoed off the wooden walls of his hive. The bumblebee stilled once more. He gazed around his hive, looking for the attacker he thought may be there, but then the trickle of information began. The bumblebee hunched down, going completely still as it processed the trickle-turned-stream flooding his awareness.

Hours later, when he realized just how far he was from his lands, and that he’d been taken on an overseas trip, despair took the bumblebee. He hadn’t seen any other bumblebees since arriving in this land. When he considered the nectar and pollen offered by the flowers here, it wasn’t surprising; even if a bumblebee somehow made it over the ocean, they would soon starve to death unless they found the lone patch of trees he had.

The bumblebee was all alone.

He sat with that fact for a long time. The only movement in the hive was that of his wings when they sporadically moved and stretched of their own accord. Just as the cloud in his mind threatened to engulf him, he forced his awareness toward other things. The easiest target was the strange man that had been peering down into the hive he called home.

Now that the bumblebee had received a torrent of information over the past few hours, he knew that the box he crafted his royal jelly in wasn’t a natural object. It had all the trappings of a man-made creation and was likely built by the human he’d attacked when still a simple insect. Considering the human had added a sweet liquid, and the internal trays of the hive appeared to be made specifically for crafting honeycomb atop, the bumblebee was fairly certain the human was trying to lure honeybees inside.

Now that he thought about it, similar man-made objects existed in the land he’d come from. A flash of a memory told him that he’d glimpsed the inside of one, perhaps when it was being constructed, perhaps after it was cracked open by a predator; it had been nowhere near as advanced as the one this strange human created.

Strange... the bumblebee thought.

If nothing else, the human was definitely that. When the bumblebee had attacked with the blind fury of an insect having its home invaded, the man had simply caught him, let him go, then run away, giggling. He was a cultivator, as was the title for anyone able to move with such speed and grace. From the information pouring into his mind, this was not how cultivators acted—they were supposed to be egotistical, aggressive, and vengeful. It made no sense.

As the bumblebee considered the man’s actions further, he began idly making more royal jelly. The process was smoother now that he had more knowledge, and he was able to concentrate it by absorbing the liquid from his crop into his stomach. He used an empty honeycomb for the new batch, and as the process continued, his thoughts disappeared.

The bumblebee lost himself to his work, focused entirely on creating the best royal jelly possible. He dismissed the nagging voice telling him there was no point; it mattered not. Even if there were no females on this land, he’d just have to make jelly potent enough to lure them from over the ocean. Just as he was pushing the last mouthful into the comb before sealing it, a low droning erupted outside.

The bumblebee listened for a long moment—something had the honeybees in an uproar. With curiosity tugging at the bumblebee, he crawled out of his hive’s entrance. The honeybees’ furious droning came from within the hive. Only a few bees were outside, and they huddled around the entrance into the tree. He buzzed in close, his body tilting to the side in confusion as he watched them work.

The honeybees on the outside were chewing at a yellow gunk that plugged the hole. As the bees tried to bite at and clear it, the sticky substance got caught in their mandibles, leaving them useless. Suddenly, the noise of the hive bloomed even louder. It was coming from the other side of the tree, so he zipped around it.

The sound was coming from a hole at the hive’s rear that he’d never seen before. He wondered if the bees had successfully bored an exit, but then he caught movement inside. Something black, orange, and entirely too large to be a honeybee ambled past. A predator had infiltrated the honeybee’s hive. Despite that fact it wasn’t his hive, righteous fury rushed forth, and the bumblebee flew for the hole.

The moment he was inside, he flew directly for the giant hornet’s neck. It saw him coming, yet never stood a chance. The bumblebee bit down at the base of its head, severing its body in two. He didn’t pause for even a second, continuing on toward the angry buzz of wings further in. The bodies of worker bees were strewn all over, meeting a similar end to the hornet he had dispatched. With each lifeless insect he passed, he grew more incensed. To create honey was a noble calling, and the fallen honeybees lining the tunnel had only been trying to protect and serve their hive.

These invaders, on the other hand, were predators. Some species of hornet were peaceful, even shy creatures—given the effectiveness of their attack, these hornets were anything but. They’d plugged the hole after the bees had returned for the night, then chewed their way through wood like it was soft wax.

If he knew hornets—which, due to the steady stream of knowledge pouring into his mind, he did—the invaders would be going for the queen. The death of the honeybee’s matriarch would mean the slow death of the entire colony if another wasn’t raised, so he increased his pace, becoming a blur between ancient layers of comb and wood.

When the bumblebee entered a golden chamber, he paused, his eyes wanting to linger on the walls of honey surrounding him, but then he saw the bodies. The lifeless forms of what had to be hundreds of workers lined the room, and it made his wings undulate in outrage. A dozen or so remained alive, and they gathered around their matriarch, doing their best to shield her from a single giant hornet. All the bumblebee could do was watch as another hornet appeared from a tunnel above and dropped down, plunging its stinger right into the queen’s abdomen.

The bumblebee’s fury turned to wrath, and his body flew into action. He appeared above the hornet and bit down on the back of its neck, easily severing the head. He spun, looking for the other hornet, but it found him.

The last invader had broken through the line of defenders and had moved to defend its brethren. Its stinger was buried in his abdomen, pumping venom into him.

At once, the pain hit him.