As we sprinted away from Pollentown, bees erupted from the hive… but they were not headed for us. Instead they flew in all directions, heading out for the major cities. Of course. Now that they had made an example out of Mechadream, they would try and force the other towns to capitulate and end the war before it even started.

  “What do we even do?”, I panted, struggling to keep up with Phoebe. “This seems like it’s a bit above our pay grade, frankly”.

  Phoebe took a moment to think. “Well, bees normally drink nectar to produce honey, right? So if they invented some new kind of mind controlling honey…”.

  “They’d need some new kind of food! And large quantities of it, at that!”, I exclaimed. “If we shut down their supply, we might actually win this!”.

  A spear of light lanced down from the heavens, cutting off the way forward. Our eyes widened and we screeched to a stop just in time. We slowly turned around.

  “I am the holy sword of Her Divinity. I am light. I am justice”, Hex floated high in the sky, his iris a burning gold. “You will join us”.

  I whistled, or at least tried to. “Quite the devoted recruit, aren’t you, Hex?”.

  His eye narrowed. “I have been freed from that name. The past has burned away. All that remains is the future”. Hex’s wings split apart, each shard of glass sprouting little wings and flying off. “[Xix sl Wxbhi]”. The beam of light split the sky again, but this time it rebounded through the web of mirror fragments, like a shooting star run amok.

  “[Spookier Mazier]!”, I called out. Hex nodded as a familiar mirror shield appeared, reflecting the holy beam. The shards of his wings shot towards it, skewering through the poor barrier and revealing… nothing underneath. He floated back in surprise as the pocket dimension collapsed, with his enemies nowhere to be seen across the wide open plains.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “What are you doing?!”, Phoebe whispered. “You dumped us here of all places?!”. With no other options left, I had chosen to hide within the old Catacombs beneath Pollentown.

  “No, you see, it’s so brazen that they would never expect it!”, I protested. “Besides, I don’t really know of any other caves around…”.

  Phoebe sighed. “You know, maybe going undercover here isn’t the worst idea. We still need to figure out how they make that mind controlling honey…”.

  “Ah yes, that’s it! That was my plan all along!”. I received nothing but an eye-roll in response.

  As I prepared to head out, Phoebe stopped me. “…Count Boogula, you seem to be taking things seriously this time. Normally you joke about the villains we face, but Queen Buzzbuzz was different… I was just wondering”.

  Why worry about that, out of all things? I wanted to ask, but something in her expression stopped me. So I answered. “After we fought Jingle Jack, I lowered my standards significantly. Queen Buzzbuzz is one of the villains of all time, if nothing else”. Phoebe couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Anyways, I’m off. See you soon!”.

  I searched the ground beneath Pollentown for hidden caves. At times like these I really wish I had taken that x-ray vision extracurricular class. Now I was stuck going through the dirt like a blind mole-rat. Still, I eventually stumbled upon it.

  “[Spooky Illusion]”, I tried to mask my presence. Multiple bees were guarding a massive stockpile of chocolate. Even from here, I could sense traces of magic. It was almost… unholy.

  I went back to Phoebe and explained. She nodded. “Oh, that kind of makes sense. It’s tradition to give chocolate to the people you, um, love. So a lot of chocolate from Sugaria has mild charm magic put on it. If they’re eating it and distilling it into much stronger honey…”.

  I frowned. If it was a really potent charm spell, that would be one thing. But we had seen it alter Hex’s soul- his own form was changed. That was forbidden magic territory. Something didn’t quite add up.

  “Anyways”, Phoebe continued. “If I break in there and cast holy magic, it should disenchant all the chocolate they’ve stored, just like how Lucy purified coffee that one time…”. She teared up just thinking about her.

  “You’re right. Let’s break in”, I declared. “…For a good cause! We’re not criminals!”.