It was the night of the winter solstice. Deep within the Amazon rainforest, far beyond the borders of any town or habitation, a joyous festival was taking place. Thousands of bees gathered together around a great, natural plaza paved with water lilies and adorned with glistening columns of bright yellow wax that refracted beams of light as though they were made of glimmering crystal. If one were to closely examine one of these refracted beams of light, they might see, for a brief moment, fantastical images dancing before their eyes of butterflies floating along a warm, summer breeze, or a wolf devouring its prey during a particularly cold winter night, or a salmon precariously climbing up a waterfall to return to its spawning grounds. Within these beams of light were images of every kind of natural creature and phenomenon known to this Earth, and even some that were not yet known. They were reflections of yet another successful year of our planet's life, and a reminder of what those present at the festival must protect in the coming year.
As the bees at the festival mingled among one another and gazed in awe at the dazzling evening sky, a distinctive and loud noise could be heard emanating from the center of the plaza.
A voice sounded within each of their minds, prompting all of them simultaneously to stop whatever they were doing and direct their attention to the large bee in the center of the plaza and adorned with a golden, holographic ceremonial garb composed of dozens of images of nature refracted from each of the waxen pillars. It was as though dozens of giant spotlights shone upon her at once from every different direction, instilling a sense of profound awe in any who saw this scene. All at once, the chattering noises within the clearing became quiet, and only the soft buzz of thousands of beating wings could be heard around the clearing.
"First of all, I'd like to personally congratulate each and every one of you for another outstanding year of hard work maintaining the balance of nature of this world," the voice sounded again, heard by everyone within the clearing. As the voice spoke, the antennae of the large bee at the center of the clearing emitted a bright green light that further illuminated her face. "I know it's not always an easy job, especially with the numerous disturbances to ecosystems across the globe that have been occurring with increasing frequency as of late… but thanks to all of your hard work, billions of creatures around the world can sleep, eat, reproduce, and continue to contribute to the natural flow of their respective ecosystems for yet another year."
As she spoke, the antennae of each bee in the clearing began to glow bright blue, emitting beams of bright blue light that projected holographic images into the clearing of prominent events that had occurred during the previous year. There were images of wildfires, of bees projecting energy into an oil spill, of bird nests belonging to endangered species that were filled with many eggs, of bees guiding confused sea turtles back to the beaches they were born at to lay their eggs, and of elephant poachers walking directly past entire herds of elephants as though they couldn't see them while bees projected walls of energy around the herds. Surrounded by these images, the Queen began to speak once again.
"And of course, we cannot forget the actions of our princesses and high channellers over the course of this year as they valiantly guided the world through each of its four seasons, right on schedule!" As she said this, the blue holograms around her suddenly began to converge and glow even brighter. Their brightness continued to increase until it was impossible to see anything within the clearing. Then, almost as quickly as the light level within the clearing increased, it decreased once again until four large holograms remained. Each depicted a single image that changed every few seconds, like a three-dimensional slideshow. One was a soft green, depicting fields of blooming flowers and skies filled with pink, falling petals propelled through the air by gentle gusts of wind. One was red, depicting trees filled with fruit and ponds surrounded by many animals and bugs looking for a drink on a hot, summer day. One was dark orange, showing a fat bear looking for a cave to sleep in as brown leaves fluttered to the ground from the sky above. The last one was a deep, dark blue, showing fields of crystal-white snow, beehives surrounded by dead drone bees on the ground while the inhabitants of the hives huddled together for warmth, starving animals scavenging desolate plains for anything to eat before becoming meals themselves to roaming packs of predators, and fish locked in a prison of solid ice beneath the surface of frozen lakes and ponds.
This pillar of light glowed brighter than the other three, and beneath it was a group of several bees that were almost as large as their queen in the center of the clearing. Their white fur was whiter than the fur on their sisters surrounding the edges of the clearing, their yellow fur more golden, their abdomens longer, and they had a large, glowing glob of white and yellow energy attached to each of their hind legs. This energy seemed to flow up their bodies and into their antennae, which glowed brightly white. They were adorned with various flowers and flower petals that covered most of their bodies, each petal brightly illuminated by the light flowing from their antennae. In the center of them was a slightly larger bee carrying more energy in her legs than her sisters surrounding her. Her antennae glowed blue instead of white. The fur on her thorax was golden-brown instead of white, and she carried a long, ornate spear with a tip shaped like a flame on a candle, with a large and curved divide down the middle such that it appeared to have two tips – one large, carrying the spear's silver point; and one small, appearing beneath the larger part of the speartip. The larger side of the speartip glowed with a bright, white light while dark, blue energy flowed from a large circle in its center through various channels intricately carved into its face that all flowed into the spear's point at its very top. The smaller side of the speartip had three small, glowing circles in its center – one green, one red, and one dark orange. Energy of each color flowed through channels carved into this part of the speartip, but neither as vigorously nor as vibrantly as the energy flowing through the larger part of the speartip. White, green, red, and orange energy flowed through the spear's golden shaft into the circles on the speartip, and the spear's wielder touched its tip to her forehead while closing her eyes as if she was in a trance.
Beneath the other three pillars of light were groups of much smaller bees, each surrounding a single bee hovering in the center of each pillar. They had white stripes upon their bodies instead of black ones, and their yellow stripes were more golden-yellow than the stripes of the other bees. Their antennae all glowed white, but not as vibrantly as the antennae of the bees under the blue pillar. The single bee in the center of each pillar had antennae that glowed in colors corresponding to their respective pillars of light, and their eyes were gold like those of the Queen and the large, slender bee beneath the blue pillar.
"Now, let's properly start tonight's annual ceremony," said the Queen, her voice echoing loudly over the buzzing wings of the bees surrounding the pillars of light. "We have a long night ahead of us – the longest of the year, in fact! As you know, we are gathered together today to channel the energy of the four Seasons Spirits so that our world may have another year blessed by the ordinal coming of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. As we plant these spirits into the earth beneath us, let us pray that this coming year's seasonal cycle may nourish Mother Nature with the energy she needs for life to continue to prosper upon the fertile ground of this world!" The Queen then raised her four upper limbs into the air, signaling her daughters to begin sending energy into each of the four pillars.
As light began to flow from their antennae to the pillars, bright orbs of energy began to coalesce and fall from them. The bees beneath the pillars began collecting the energy, drawing it into their four upper limbs. At the same time, the single bee in the center of each pillar landed on the ground below and touched their heads to the earth. The large, slender bee in the center of the blue pillar continued to hover, instead touching the tip of her spear to the ground to draw energy to it. The lights inside the four circles on the spear suddenly darkened, and four bright orbs flew from the spear into each of the four pillars. Suddenly, a bright star began to shine less than a meter above the head of the bee in the center of each pillar, and the bees that were collecting energy from the pillars began to send it into the bees at the center of each pillar, who then channeled it into the stars above each of them. These four bees slowly started to rise until the stars' bright light fully engulfed them. The stars began to glow brighter and brighter, until a multicolored ring appeared and surrounded the entire clearing. Each part of the ring glowed with the color corresponding to the star closest to it, and the stars themselves began to pulsate and send gusts of strong wind throughout the clearing. Despite this, the Queen and the bees beneath the pillars of light seemed unfazed, as though they were within the calm eye of a roaring hurricane.
After a few minutes passed, the Queen began to speak again, her voice powerfully cutting through the roaring wind so that each of her many children could hear it clearly. "The ceremony is nearly complete! Excellent work! Now, channellers, command these spirits back into the Earth so that we may-"
"THUD!"
"What was that sound? What happened!?" the Queen asked, frantically looking around her to determine the cause of the sound. If something was going wrong with the ritual, she needed to know right away before it went completely awry.
"THUD!"
She turned and saw that the bees surrounding the green pillar and the orange pillar were no longer flying nor gathering the falling energy, instead closely huddled around something directly beneath each star.
"Azeena, get down!" yelled a voice before one of the bees near the green star quickly flew directly over to the blue star, hastily shoving the large bee inside of it out of the pillar. As she did so, she dropped her spear and another bee swooped in to grab it before promptly falling to the ground herself. The large bee glowed so brightly that, upon first glance, she could be mistaken for a smaller blue star that was dwarfed in brilliance by the larger star she had been pushed out of. Confused, the large bee looked at the blue star before it emanated a large, powerful shockwave, violently throwing her to the ground. The light emanating from her began to dissipate as she was sent reeling by the shockwave. As it dissipated, the one who had pushed her saw that she had been too late. The one called "Azeena," the Queen's firstborn, was bleeding large drops of crimson blood from a spot on her torso stained a dark black. A large, sharp object was lodged within the center of her wound. Too stunned to get up herself, one of her sisters quickly flew from the blue pillar over to where she was, extending a limb for her to grab on to. After getting up, the large bee looked at the blue star and saw that it was violently thrashing against the sides of the blue pillar as though it was a rabid dog trying to escape its kennel. She saw that the smaller bees on the edges of the clearing were in an uproar, no longer sending energy to the pillar. They were flying all around the clearing, unable to get close to the pillars due to the violent winds coming from the four stars. Looking beyond them, she noticed that the ring of light surrounding the clearing was also beginning to dissipate. She saw that a few bees had figured out what had happened and were desperately channeling energy into the edges of each pillar – attempting to strengthen the pillars instead of giving the energy to the bees beneath each pillar.
"I need to get back up there!" she yelled, looking up towards the thrashing blue star. "Where's my spear!?"
"Azeena, no, you'll kill yourself! Wait!" yelled the one who had pushed her.
"I'll go!" yelled the one who tried to help her up.
"Ambi, no!" Azeena yelled.
But Ambi did not listen, instead flying straight towards the blue star.
"Ambi, wait, look!"
Ambi stopped mid-air, looking to where her sister was pointing with her upper-right limb.
"Wait – is that… Kue?" she said, flying over to the smaller bee that had grabbed Azeena's spear moments prior.
"Get out of my way! Kue? Kue, are you okay?" she yelled, using her long abdomen to shove aside her sisters that were attending to the smaller bee on the ground in the center of the blue pillar. As they cleared out of the way, she saw the smaller bee collapsed on the ground with a long, black object sticking out of her thorax while bright yellow blood oozed from the wound. She looked down and saw that the bee was tightly clutching Azeena's spear close to her body with all six of her limbs, seemingly protecting it like it was a scared child.
"Kue? Kue, are you okay!?" she yelled again, shaking the injured bee with her upper limbs.
No response.
Frantic, Ambi began crawling around Kue as she tried to figure out what to do. Suddenly, her eyes settled on the wound in Kue's thorax. Grabbing the object that created the wound with her jaws, she got ready to pull before one of her sisters yelled, "wait, stop! It's barbed! You can't pull it out! You'll hurt her!"
Ambi suddenly stopped, then stuck her two upper limbs into either side of the wound to separate the flesh around the black object. Slowly, she began to pull it out, making twisting motions with her head as she did so and stopping the moment she met any resistance.
Holding the object in front of her with her limbs, she quickly spat on Kue's now-open wound to cover it with wax to prevent further bleeding.
Now on alert, she began frantically looking around herself as she yelled, "who did this!? Who shot a stinger at her!? Answer me!"
She suddenly heard a loud crash, and quickly turned her head towards the source of the noise. Suddenly, the green pillar of light shattered, and the resulting shockwave threw the bees beneath it to the ground once again. The green star violently shook before flying off into the night sky, quickly disappearing over the horizon. At the same time, the green part of the ring of light surrounding the clearing completely disappeared.
"Azeena needs to continue the ritual! We can still fix this!" Ambi yelled, frantically shifting her gaze between the other three stars. "Kue, give me the spear! I need the spear!" she yelled, grabbing the spear that the unconscious Kue was still clutching. But the spear wouldn't budge. Kue was holding onto it too tightly.
"Fine, then, if I can't carry the spear, I'll just carry you!" she yelled, grabbing Kue with all six of her limbs and flying up toward the blue star. Suddenly, she heard another crash and the orange pillar shattered. The orange star, like the green one, also flew off into the horizon, and the orange part of the ring around the clearing completely disappeared.
"No, no, this isn't good!" she yelled. "I need to fix this! I have to fix this! I-"
Suddenly, the blue star crashed into her, throwing her and Kue to the ground. The two bees separated, and Ambi rolled for several feet before coming to a complete stop. She tried to get up again, but she was distracted by the red pillar, which had also just shattered and released the red star inside of it.
Bruised and battered, she immediately started flying again. She quickly glanced around, looking for Kue and the spear. But she couldn't see either.
"No… no!" she yelled, helplessly looking to her right just in time to see the blue star's final thrash against the blue pillar completely shatter it. The shockwave threw Ambi to the ground, and the last thing she saw before she blacked out was a large, blue star flying off into the horizon.