CHAPTER 17: CHAPTER 17 :HERE COMES THE QUEEN!

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**Chapter 20: The First Clash**

The Queen’s arrival changed the air itself. The clearing became heavier, every breath scraped through the throat like sand. Her wings beat once, not for flight but to announce her dominance. The sound echoed through soil and shell, forcing every insect to bow whether they wished to or not.

Buzz forced his legs straight. His wing screamed with pain, but he held. He looked at her, not as a subject, not as prey, but as an enemy. Beside him Zza trembled, yet her antennae pointed forward, refusing to bend.

The army shifted into their positions, as if the body remembered discipline even when the mind was shaking. The Centipedes coiled into rings around the clearing, hundreds of legs grinding into dirt. The Scarab Sisters raised their drums high and struck them in unison, their rhythm pounding like a heart large enough to hold them all. The Glowbeetles pulsed their bodies with measured light, not in panic but in careful patterns meant to guide allies through the chaos. The Weaverworms hung from the trees, their threads stretching across the canopy like nets waiting to fall.

The Queen watched them with something that was not amusement and not anger, only certainty. Her voice entered without sound, pressing into their skulls until it felt like thought itself had turned against them. "You stand because I allow you to stand. You resist because I allow you to resist. Every move you make is still mine."

Buzz felt his knees shake. He felt the memory of giving up whisper inside his skull. He felt the silence calling him back into the safety of surrender. He spoke anyway. "If you allowed this, then you made a mistake."

The Queen’s eyes turned on him. The weight nearly drove him into the dirt. Zza braced his shoulder, pulling him upright, her own voice cutting through the storm. "He is not yours."

The Scarabs struck again. The drums rolled louder, their shells ringing until the ground itself seemed to carry the beat. The Centipedes moved in unison, their coils tightening, creating walls of shifting armor. Glowbeetles launched into the air, pulsing signals, each one carrying instructions that kept the chaos from collapsing.

The Queen moved without hurry. Her claw sliced through the first Centipede wall as if it were reeds. Chitin cracked, legs scattered, the air filled with the hiss of pain. But the second coil snapped shut behind her, hundreds of bodies pressing at once. She lifted her wings, and with one pulse of light they were thrown back, segments breaking on roots and stone.

A Scarab charged, claws raised, drum still strapped to its back. It struck with a roar that echoed across the clearing. The Queen caught the claw in one hand and squeezed until it shattered like brittle wood. The Scarab screamed once before her mandibles pierced its chest. The drum rang a single hollow note as its body hit the ground.

Buzz felt his stomach twist. He forced his legs forward, shouting above the din. "Hold the lines. Do not scatter. She wants us apart."

The Glowbeetles pulsed his words through light, their signals bouncing across the field. Scarabs regrouped, forming pairs instead of singles, their claws striking in rhythm with the drums. Centipedes coiled tighter, though their bodies shook with the strain. The Weaverworms dropped their threads at last, silk falling in sheets that clung to the Queen’s wings, binding her in place for a heartbeat.

It was enough. The Scarabs struck together, claws hammering her from both sides. Centipedes lunged in rows, their fangs sinking deep into her carapace. Glowbeetles burst their bodies against her armor, the glow blinding, searing into her eyes.

For a moment the Queen slowed. For a moment the impossible seemed real.

Then her wings flared, light tearing through silk, through flesh, through soil. Scarabs fell broken, Centipedes split apart, Glowbeetles dropped lifeless from the air. The silence rushed back in, stronger than before, drowning the cries of the wounded.

Zza clung to Buzz, her chest heaving, her hands bloodied from binding wounds faster than she could count them. "We can’t win like this," she whispered.

Buzz stared at the Queen. His body shook, every scar screaming, his wing barely holding to his back. He thought of the drones thanking her as they dissolved. He thought of the laughter she had twisted into something empty. He thought of the way silence had once listened and judged, and now it devoured.

"We don’t win by breaking her," he said. His voice shook, but it carried. "We win by not letting her break us. Let’s hold our fort with all we’ve got"

The army looked to him again. Not with trust, not with loyalty, but with the thin thread of desperation that could still bind them together. Scarabs struck their drums once more. Glowbeetles dimmed their light into a steady beat. Centipedes shifted closer, their coils pressing into tighter walls. The Weaver Elder spun fresh silk, already lowering threads for the next attempt.

The Queen tilted her head, watching him, and for the first time her certainty faltered.

The battle was not over. It had only begun.

The battle tore the clearing apart. Roots split, soil churned, wings snapped, shells cracked. Yet in the center of the chaos, Buzz and Zza stood side by side.

Buzz’s legs burned with every step, his wing hung torn and useless, but he moved anyway. Zza stayed close, silk threads in her hands, pulling them tight around wounds, binding allies back into the fight. Her body shook, not from fear but from exhaustion she could no longer hide.

A Scarab stumbled past, shell broken open across its back. Zza leapt forward, weaving her thread across the crack before the creature collapsed. "Go," she commanded, and it went without a word, eyes dull but steadier than before.

Buzz turned just in time to block a lunging drone. Its eyes were empty, but its jaws snapped with mechanical hunger. He slammed his claw into its throat, drove it down, and crushed its head into the dirt until it stopped moving. His chest heaved, air rasping through mandibles clenched with effort.

"Stay with me," he muttered.

Zza answered without looking up. "I am here."

The Queen’s voice pressed harder. "She will abandon you, Buzz Windbreaker. She will see that you are weak. She will find strength elsewhere."

The words slid under his skin like poison. He felt his body falter, his hand slip from the drone’s corpse. He turned and saw Zza’s eyes, tired but sharp. She shook her head once, firm. "I do not leave. Not you."

Buzz gritted his teeth. He forced the Queen’s voice out with a growl, dragging himself back upright.

Another wave of drones charged. Glowbeetles flickered their warning, but too late. The swarm crashed against the Centipede wall, mandibles tearing, legs ripping, the coil beginning to unravel. Scarabs beat their drums louder, claws flashing, but the line bent toward breaking.

Buzz surged forward, dragging Zza with him. He threw himself into the breach, claw slamming down, wings straining though they could no longer lift him. Drones clawed at his sides, ripping open his shell, yet he held. Zza pressed against him, threads snapping from her hands as she bound wound after wound in frantic motions.

"You cannot patch everything," he hissed through clenched teeth.

Her eyes burned at him. "Then I will patch you first."

He almost laughed, even as the pain tore deeper. "Do not waste the thread."

"Too late," she said, silk tightening around his side. "I already did."

The Queen’s silence struck again. Buzz staggered, his vision splitting, Zza’s face flickering into the Queen’s once more. For an instant he wanted to let go. To sink. To fall quiet.

Then Zza’s hand pressed against his chest. Real. Solid. Bloodied but alive. "Do not stop crawling," she said.

He blinked hard. Her face cleared. The silence wavered. His knees held.

He slammed another drone down. She cut its throat with her silk. The line held.

Around them the battle raged, but within their circle there was a steadiness. Buzz bled. Zza bound. They moved as one body, one rhythm. He struck. She mended. He staggered. She steadied.

The Queen watched from the center of the clearing. Her wings glowed, her claws dripped with the blood of Scarabs and Centipedes alike, but her eyes stayed fixed on them.

Her voice brushed against them once more. "You think love is armor. You think loyalty is a shield. I will show you what they truly are."

Buzz spat blood into the dirt. "Show us then."

Zza tightened her threads, jaw set. "And we will still crawl."

The Queen’s smile broke the silence. It was not victory. It was challenge.

The battle had turned personal.