Chapter 100: The Pressure Of The World

The moment I stepped through the gate, the world was filled with shouting voices trying to be heard over the others. There was no one at the gate, but both Riza and Joni had their spears out.

I wanted to tell them that it wasn't necessary, but I wasn't confident in my own words at the moment. I could see the crowd up ahead that was poor out of the Hive Central Chambers, and they were all screaming, cheering, or booing.

"This is a mess; what is wrong with all of these people? Why are they all acting like this?" I asked, accidentally letting some of my stress out as I spoke.

"I am not sure why everyone is acting like this, but since you have awoken, everyone seems to be scrambling to get things done, and things are getting forgotten. I would assume that this meeting might stem from the Predators, but I think that it has something to do with the mess the Hive is becoming," Riza said as we advanced on the roiling crowd.

*Poof!*

"You need to get your emotions settled down and stop trying to do everything at once," Hilda explained to me, but that was easier said than done.

"What am I supposed to do then? Just leave everything and hope it works out? I know that I need to get my emotions under control, but I have no help! There are over a hundred people in this Hive, but I am the only one that can do the jobs that need to be done!" I complained in frustration.

"I am here to help you as much as I…." Hilda started to say, but I cut her off.

"Yes, I know you do, but even you can only do one out of five things. The moment I get close to finishing something, I get distracted by something or someone else!" I said, not being able to hold the stress back from my voice at all.

The people were getting louder, and that was just adding to the mounting stress of everyone expecting me to just fix things, but I had chosen to do this! I could have just gone and done nothing, but then there could have been a chance to have been killed already by the predators.

We had reached the crowd now, and people were starting to move as they saw us approach, and they quieted down. It was hard to tell with the other ninety percent of the people yelling, but as I got further in and the crowd parted, people started to quiet.

"We should be the ones attacking them!" I heard Malodar cry out as I finally made my way through.

I was sure that I could have yelled, and everyone would have moved, but that wasn't wise right now. I was worried that I would just project my emotions that were already unstable to everyone else even more than I already was.

"Oh? How? With what army? Do you know where they are? Or do you just plan on looking over the entire world until we find them?" Ryan asked in a loud and commanding voice.

"Don't any of you Raccoons know?! You have dealt with them the most, so you must know where they are coming from?" Thaimon shouted back.

"The only reason we are alive now is that we stayed in the forest! Even when we asked for help, we requested from the forest! What have you or any of the others done against them?!" Ryan growled, but I had listened to this for long enough.

"ENOUGH!" I shouted, and the entire Hive Chamber went silent. So much so that I thought that everyone had even stopped breathing, and they might have.

I walked over to my chair, and Messia attended me with Riza and Joni taking up their guard positions. Miasma came over to take my other side but did not try to sit with me, thankfully.

"What is the meaning of this argument? I do not want to know what it is about, I heard. What I can't understand is why it is a problem that requires you all to break down the order of the Hive?! Does everyone not have jobs?" I asked with a bit of irritation, and everyone recoiled slightly, but there was nothing for it at this point.

"Many people are waiting for more areas to open up, so for now, there are many without work. We need more places to have people working, or we are going to have many people without work. There is also the problem with having to constantly get water," Tita explained to me, but that was precisely what I was trying to do before I came up to break up with children's squabble!

"I was about to do that before I had to come down here and stop the Hive from tearing itself apart! I have a list of things that I am trying to get done, but every time I get to one, I am forced to leave it!" I shouted, losing whatever shred of calm I had been holding on to.

I am the Queen, I get that. I have responsibilities, but what Queen is forced to take care of all the problems of everything that comes up?!

I felt like I had no help, but everyone just kept asking for another thing instead of what they could help with now! Was I supposed to have to constantly be going from now on?

"My Queen, we understand that this is a busy time for you, but we can only do what you have set out for us. If we could do more, we would, but you are the one that has control of everything," Thiamon explained, but he was preaching to the choir.

"What do you need from me then? I need to go back up and talk with Beezli, or I could just let her come out right here! Only then can I sort the Hex-Combs, and I have been trying to do that for you all, but I am down here now, instead," I fumed.

Everyone started to leave, and they all looked on edge, but what was I supposed to do? Everyone needed my mood to comfort them, and I couldn't right now.

"Ashia, are you alright?" Messia asked in a worried voice.

"No, I am not!" I said and got up but immediately regretted my tone.

I could feel the world pushing in on me right now, and nothing I did could stop it. Now, I had just taken my anger out on the people that followed me, but I couldn't be sorry for it.

"Is there something we can do? Should we go get Serria?" Miasma asked, coming over to me, but I shook my head and stepped back.

"I… I need to be alone for a little bit," I said with my chest feeling tight, and then I turned and walked away from everyone in the room. 

No one tried to stop me or call out to me, but I wouldn't have stopped. I just kept walking fast to the Honey Gate. 

I used it without thought, and then I was back on the navigational level. Gamble tried to call out for me, but I waved him off and went directly to the Levi-Stone pad and clicked it down.

I felt terrible for ignoring Gamble, but I didn't trust myself to speak at that moment. I was a basket case of emotions right now that I seemed to have absolutely no control over right now.

I stepped off the stone, and walked over to my bed, and threw myself into it. I didn't know what I was doing anymore, I felt out of sorts and out of place, but I also felt like I was losing my mind.

Every part of me wanted to curl into a ball, but even though I had just walked away from that problem, it was to come up here and fix this problem. I needed to get on top of everything, but I needed help badly.

So I summoned Beezli, the only person that I could think of that might have a solution for my problems. 

*Snap! Crack!*

I was surprised the same snap from the Pelleta came, causing a jagged line to appear in front of me, but then Beezli's air cracking was right after. I watched as two portals into a different place opened up, and a green and a yellow woman exited each of them. 

The two Goddesses walked on the bed and then sat down in front of me, and both remained silent until they were seated. I looked at the two of them, and they both smiled warmly at me, and I had to take a deep, shaking breath to keep from bursting into tears.

This body, it wanted me to break down, but that wasn't me, and I had left, so everyone didn't see it happen if I couldn't stop it. I let my breath out, and Beelzi spoke.

"You have been letting things pile up, and now they are coming back to bite you, but I do understand. No games this time because I don't come with a blessing, but a modification to your God-Tech," Beezli explained to me.

"If there were more of us, we might be able to do more to help you, but for now, we will give the girls access to the ship and your scanning function. This way, you can get your wives to help you with things. Beezli does not have the power on her own to do this, and even the two of us can only make these slight changes, but it should be enough," Pelleta said with a warm smile.

"Really? You can do that? I was just horrible to everyone, and it was all my own fault, not theirs. I was the one that drove them into a frenzy with my raging emotions, which are a real pain in the Bee tail," I said, and the stress pressure that had been crushing me let its grip go. 

"You are a woman, so you will feel things differently, but when you evolve, you will change again. The old you that you are now will go through a metamorphosis, and it should help you connect with the body more. I don't know how it is going to affect you, but you will need this to go on," Beezli explained to me.

"I am going to lose part of me?" I asked, a bit worried.

"Not in the way that you think, but it will remove the last vestiges of male that you have holding you back. It will be hard at. First, it will feel like you are stepping into a new body again, but it will no longer feel like you are using the body," Beezli explained, and she was right.

I still felt like I was the same person from Earth, and that really wasn't the case anymore. I did feel like I was always trying to deal with two consciousnesses that were constantly at war with one another for logic and instinct. 

Maybe this is what I needed, but the idea was a bit daunting, to say the least. I basically agreed to go all the way with this and become a woman, not a man in a woman's body.

"And you think that me becoming in sync with my body will make my life easier? Why? So I can cry whenever I get upset?" I asked a bit bitterly.

"You know, if you just dealt with the issues before they became problems, then you wouldn't find yourself near to tears so much. You have wives, and they can help you carry the burden, but now you need to apologize to them for the way you acted. I was hoping that I was going to meet all your cute little wives," Pellata told me, and I knew that she was right.

"Yes, I will go talk to them, but, Beezli, you need to finish the upgrades to the ship so I can get more Hex-Combs open so I can get everyone back to being productive," I said and Beezli nodded to me.

"Yes, Pelleta will place the Crown of Thorns Sentry Station on the ship. Then we will see you again when you figure out the last two Hive Tasks and complete them; both should go hand in hand," Beezli said with a smile, and then the three of us got up.

"Thank you for coming and talking to me; I needed this and for allowing the girls to help me with my tasks. I will get caught up with everything, and then I can go back to… it will never be a normal life, but it will be easier to manage," I said, and both Goddesses gave me a hug, and then the air snapped and crackled behind them, and they disappeared.

It was now time to go make amends to the girls and time to get the ship back into a working hive. I had many things that were left to do, but now I wouldn't be struggling alone.

[Woot! chapter 100, made it a big one to mark the 100th chapter, but to also mark the end of the tire spinning the MC has been doing for awhile. the stories moves back to a smooth, and fun rhythm now, sorry if it was dragging before!]