The Confused Explorer

Looking at the information on this Queen, Mike wasn't that surprised by it. Any creature with a colony this large and full of dangerous bugs had to have some sort of power to themselves.

Mike just didn't know how he'd handle these two ticking time bombs. Especially after knowing that the Queen could use either one of her other two powers.

For one Turul wasn't able to beat them in a two vs one match, and if he attacked only one of them, the other would attract a storm of lightning bug colony on them.

A large headache spread out amongst Mikes chaotic thoughts. The only possible idea that might help out is if Mike could scan the king and get vital information on what his power was, but Mike wasn't able to scan it through the rubber bag.

During the mess of ideas coming and going, Mike's best plan was to just squash the bag with the bugs inside and keep it closed as to not allow for any sort of pheromone to leak out as they ran away towards the direction they were originally heading too.

Looking at Turul who was still tightly holding the bag shut, Mike knew he had no idea on what abouts to do with these two things, and was honestly slightly scared of a hurricane of lightning crashing down on them suddenly.

Sighing, Mike decided that instead of sitting here and waiting for the lightning bugs to get suspicious it was better to just go through with one plan and hopefully it would be the right one.

Steeling himself, Mike once more looked at Turul before making the command of crushing the bees.

Bringing out a large amount of earth, Turul brought down a large boulder that seemed kind of overkill in order to kill two tiny little bugs, but Mike didn't say anything knowing that Turul would make sure they died with one single hit.

Moving the rock with a blinding speed it crashed straight into the bag. The wind and dust that flew around when Turul did that was immense.

Closing his eyes in order to shield from dust and wind, Mike felt the pressure that came from the crash. Turul seemed pretty angry at these bugs for the fight earlier.

Mike opened his eyes to look at the large boulder that was dropped, however what came into his sights was just an even larger boulder in the air, it seemed like Turul planned on another boulder being dropped in order to kill them.

The last boulder could be called large because it was bigger than a car, this boulder was about the size of a house in front of him. Why Turul didn't decide to use this during their battle earlier befuddled Mike.

Mike turned and started to sprint away from the crash zone, he was too close. As a rocking motion took over the ground sweeping Mike off of his feet, Mike fell face first and a large stream of dust and wind rocketed over him covering him in a sort of smoky layer.

Crawling up and coughing loudly, Mike once more looked at the boulders, hoping not to see an even larger one this time, luckily it seemed like Turul was done with crushing them.

The large boulder took up so much space it'd be impossible to figure out if the two bugs died.

Wringing out the brown water from his clothes, Mike walked over to Turul.

Looking at the looming boulder up closer, Mike was sure that those two were dead since nothing could withstand that amount of weight with how small they were.

"Still we should leave now before the lightning bugs realize that there Queen and King are dead." Running over and picking up all of the stuff that had dropped when he created the rubber bag, Mike stuffed it all back into a newly created gray backpack.

Packing all of the stuff, Mike took one more glance at the large boulder.

"I really need to scan that king bug, maybe I could get Turul to remove the boulder so I could scan them." Whispering to himself Mike thought of what would happen if he did that.

Sighing, Mike knew he wouldn't be able to because of the chances of the surrounding worker lightning bugs realizing that their Queen and King are dead.

Picking himself up with a grunt and disappearing thoughts, Mike moved towards Turul so that they may head on to the next location, however it seemed like both of them doubted how powerful this clan of lighting bugs was, or how they operated.

A rumble of thunder echoed around them, then lightning strike after lightning strike struck the area around them. Mike knew that something wasn't right.

"I knew I should have gotten more information on that damn Queen, she probably did something in order to get us killed!" Looking anxiously over at Turul, Mike started to run towards the way in which they were walking towards before the storm.

Running in rain had never felt this dangerous, especially when you have a powerful colony of potentially millions wanting you and your companions head.

Sprinting as fast he could, Mike looked behind to see Turul right behind him. Turul was also checking out the area, making sure that nothing got to close to either of them.

"It seems like no animal is in the area anymore since these living lightning rods moved in." Looking for more lightning, Mike didn't have a hard time seeing where they would strike since they moved in a line from where the last one hit. They especially seemed to be concentrating on the area in which they were just in. Most likely the Queen and King had signaled somehow to the other bugs that they were stuck and were getting rescued as they ran.

"Getting away from these things is gonna take forever, if we even can, but there's no way we could defeat these things with Turul alone."

"Plus I can't even make a rubber tarp since the force of lightning just hitting it would probably kill me anyways!"

✵

As Mike and Turul continued their sprint towards safety. The large boulder that Turul had crushed the King and Queen with had been constantly struck by lightning once the two of them had ran away.

Finally the bugs managed to dig a hole half way through with a little over 10-15 strikes in one general area. Before another strike could hit the boulder, it shattered by itself with an explosion of blue lightning cracking the air as the air broiled with heat from it. Deep into the boulder was a large swath of blue light seeming to vibrate and shudder awake.

This large swath of lightning 'jumped' out of the pit in which it was in. As it flew up, it created unnatural arcs of deep blue lightning around it, seemingly powering up the storm around it making it larger and stronger. With this new addition of blue lightning, the rain only pelted down more heavily onto the ground starting to become a flood in some areas.

Something happened, and it wasn't pretty.

✵

As Mike and Turul ran, it only seemed like the rain got heavier and the lightning seemed more frequent.

Then, the lightning stopped. It was so abrupt, not like when the Queen and King came down, but more like it was in the middle of sending one down and it just stopped. Skidding slightly, Mike quickly turned back to look. It was the worst mistake he had made up until coming here.

What floated high and behind him could not be seen since it was too bright. A large ball of pure blue mass floated erect in the sky, calling it the sun would be an understatement.

✵

Stopping entirely Mike could only stare at this and the only thing that came to his mind was his death.

"What the fu-" Before Mike could say anything else out loud, it moved. It was only slightly but it did indeed get slightly closer. With this movement it brought out a large clap of thunder and a shockwave that blasted past Mike and Turul, shaking and bending the trees around them, like in those scenes of atomic bomb explosions where all the trees were pushed with the shockwave pulling the leaves back.

Turul seemed like he wasn't having any of it though, agiley and soundlessly he climbed into the air a single flap of his large wings. Coming up to a height of little over 1,000 feet, he appeared to be nothing but a dot, and that'd only be when it is good lighting and sound weather. Mike couldn't see him anymore after he had reached about 100 feet.

Turul bent both of his legs forward in a sort of grasping motion, like he was about to rest onto a tree or about to grab prey from out of the sky. Bringing his two claws together, he started to absorb the surrounding air and compress it into a ball as well. This compressed air started off very small, not even noticeable by the n.a.k.e.d eye. Then this ball slowly got bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

Before long this compressed air was larger than Turul was, and this process only took about 30 seconds. In this time the ball of blue mass wasn't stationary, with every movement it moved closer. How much distance it crossed per movement was unknown since it was just that large.

Mike stood tall and still like a statue as he watched the large blue sun creep closer and closer to his area, and sadly he didn't have Turul close by in order to feel safe, even if he was doing something right now in order to protect him.

The large swirl of blue light made Mike feel dread, like staring at something impossible to defeat. It made one feel powerless, after all even if he was excited and ready to face this new and exciting world here, he was still just a regular office worker just but a couple days ago. He never expected he'd have to go up against a literal sun!!

Mike honestly just felt like collapsing to the ground and weeping bitter tears out of regret, but honestly he couldn't even do that anymore. Not with how weak and hollow he felt anyways.

"Is this how I die? Without ever being able to succeed in this new found hope of mine? Finally when I am just about to be able to get to this brilliant and new stage, I fail. Is this my fate?" A bitter laugh escaped Mikes lips as he looked at the death that loomed right over his head with eyes of discontentment and anger.

Once it creeped slightly closer, Mike could see how it looked in more detail. It honestly looked like a real sun, every now and then it'd have something that looked like a solar flare except it was more lightning like with how it branched off. Obviously this was one of the works of the duo of destruction.

In slow motion Mike watched it creep closer upon him. When he felt it was so close he could feel the static and heat in the air, Mike closed his eyes, he could no longer do anything. Nothing could stop it from killing him, not even Turul.

As it got hotter by the second, and just when Mike felt like he was in a sauna, it all seemed to vanish away like the wind. What replaced it was a screeching sound of wind blowing in the surroundings, like a ghost, except this screeching was less ethereal and more like a banshee was screaming as loud as it could in his ear.

With this screaming the feeling of heavy droplets wetting his face and hair constantly stopped. Looking around him it was like a scene in all of those famous superpower shows, like Superman or Thor were fighting.

What appeared before him was, again, that large swirling mass of blue lightning, however fighting that was an equally as big, large translucent orb that brought a screech like rubbing metal together as they pushed back and forth on one another.

'What the actual crap is this though!' Mike wasn't even able to voice his thoughts like he usually does as he looked at this large battle of whatever it was that was battling.

Pushing and clashing together it seemed like they would be at this for a very long time since it looked like neither of them could get the edge over the other.