SSV 4 Chapter 16 (Patreon)

Pollen had her eyes closed, and I noticed a little pollen dusting across her eyelids. I wondered if that came from working with the bees or if it was just a personal touch she liked.

The kiss ended, and I hesitated to push much further. I still wanted to get to know her better. But it was clear that we had serious chemistry. My entire body was ready to pin her down right then and there after those kisses.

I went to say something, when I sensed movement behind me.

My void arm shot back, smashing the face of what I registered as a large ant before it disappeared, pasted by how quickly my arm had moved.

The wind from my swing mixed with the violent pasting made Pollen shriek.

The tree behind the ant was pasted too.

“Holy shit. What was that?” She asked, looking around quickly, trying to identify the threat.

I stared at the space that I had just damaged with shock. I’d only flinched, but my void arm had a lot more power behind it than I had expected. I really needed to be careful in my reactions.

“I think your monster just tried to ambush me.” I sounded as unsure as I felt.

There had only been a moment to understand what it was before I pasted it. I wasn’t even sure if it had been more monster or man.

“Remind me not to ever surprise you. Maybe you should have everyone you care about wear a bell.” She looked around me at the damage I’d done.

“Not the worst idea. Stella would love a bell.” I laughed.

“I get the feeling she’d love anything you gave her.” Pollen replied. “But should we get moving? Was that the only one or are there more?”

I heard her question, but I was more concerned with how I missed a monster like that. I scanned the forest again, even knowing more about what I needed to look for, but I found nothing. “Have you ever found one of the damaged hives?” If the ant was the monster, it should leave some scraps.

Pollen’s face lit up. “Yes, this way.” She stared around as she moved, seeming jumpier.

I lifted her up into the air. “Point in the way we should move.” I made a small carriage, this time opting for making it void black instead of transparent so she’d be more comfortable.

Pollen scooted over onto the bench with me. “That way.”

I let the carriage drift forward a little faster than walking.

“So, I shared my power. I’ve seen yours, but I don’t understand the extent of how this all works.” She gestured around at the carriage. “I feel like the clock is going to strike midnight and this is all going to turn into a pumpkin.”

Laughing, I swirled my hand in the air, putting on a show for her.

Swirls of light arced, fire swirled, wind blew, and a small ball of radiation glowed. “I can control energy, in all its forms.”

“Wait, is that radioactive?” She pointed at the glowing ball, her brow furrowing.

“Yes, but I can control the energy it gives off and protect you.”

Pollen still looked nervous, so I waved and the radioactive ball disappeared. “Thanks.” She muttered.

The rest of my women were either heroes or villains. They had a boisterous confidence to them that Pollen lacked. She’d grown up having to be more cautious in order to live.

And it made me even more protective of her. I wanted to wrap her up in a shell of kinetic energy to protect her.

“That way.” She pointed, but she was careful not to bump the electricity that was arcing freely in the air.

I dismissed all of it. “What you are riding on is a shell of kinetic energy. I’m altering how much light can get through.”

“Oh.” She looked down at the bench. “I guess that makes sense. But even if you have this kind of power, you are using it really well, and using a lot of it.”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t just that I had my particular power. Even if I mimicked the power of an S grade super, I’d still outclass them. “It was the luck of the draw. Though, I didn’t always think I was lucky.”

Pollen pointed again, directing me, and then followed up on what I’d said. “I’m sure a power like this was destructive. I’ve heard the stories from a lot of the people that come through here.”

I nodded, wondering how she would react to what I was about to tell her. I realized her reaction was really important to me. “I killed Fortress.”

I watched her, and I swore my heart skipped a beat as I waited to see what she would say to that news.

She didn’t even flinch. “Oh.” She was at a loss for words. “Kind of before my time, but I’ve seen the documentary in the library. We could stay in one of the rooms if we were watching one of the DVDs. You weren’t painted in a very good light.”

“I was sixteen, and it was the first time I used my power. I’m not sure what they got right or wrong. I never had the guts to see the documentary.” I had never been one for masochism.

“Basically it says a lot of things don’t add up from that day, but we’ll never know the full truth because you disappeared into the wind. Huh, I guess I could ask you though?” She looked up at me with curiosity in her gaze.

“Fortress went crazy from being overworked. He’d just been given the wrong address and killed a bunch of kids. Afterwards, Wrath, the only surviving senior hero, negotiated her silence in return for wrestling hero management away from the military to where she could try to prevent another incident like it.” I sighed.

“Noble goal, but at great cost to you.” Pollen sighed and put her face in her hands. “My story isn’t so glorious either. Orphaned after my parents died when I was young, the system sucks for mutas.”

“At least New Haven is better?” It came out as a question.

“Much better. Mostly because people leave me alone, except for whatever this monster is. My bees didn’t do anything to anyone. They don’t deserve this.” She crossed her arms and seemed like she wanted to put up a fight against the monster ant we had seen.

But then her eyes caught on a specific area of the woods. “There, in that ravine. There were some scraps from hives in there.” She pointed to a slope in the ground and I flew over it to get a better look.

There were scraps from a hive littered about the ground.

“Five or six hives?” I asked. Not a big deal, especially not for the city guards. I could see why they hadn’t put much effort into this.

“Double that I think. See the different patterns in the comb?” She pointed down at them.

“Nope. Actually, I don’t, but I’ll trust you on this one. Okay, so what’s around here?” Once again, I probed with my ability and was frustrated by sensing nothing.

But as I was sensing, I watched a tiny ant crawl over the hive, carrying a chunk of something. Then it moved over to a nearby patch where it disappeared.

Focusing closer, I noticed a number of ants coming and going.

“That’s an ant hill.” I pointed to the spot in the grass where they were disappearing.

“This is a forest.” Pollen said with a blank face. “There are bugs everywhere.”

“We were attacked by an ant monster that evaded my senses on multiple probes.” I rubbed at my chin as I shifted my power to sense for ki.

Most living things had some ki. Even the trees carried it; every now and then one would develop a power.

I focused on the ant hill.

The little buggers each had a single power flowing through them. Which meant not only did the hill develop powers, but most likely the queen had a power and was passing it off to all the drones.

“Fuck me. These ants are all powered.”

“Really?” Pollen leaned over, peering down. “What do they do?”

“One way to find out.” I lifted one off the ant hill and applied some pressure to it.

It squirmed with the pressure and expanded rapidly, turning into an eight foot tall ant monster that rose up on its hind legs.

“Yeah…” My voice trailed off. “Pretty sure we found your problem, and a large problem for New Haven.” There had to be hundreds if not thousands of these ants just in the nearby area.

“I wish my bees had powers.” Pollen seemed unperturbed by the ant monster. “What are you going to do?”

My brain nearly shorted out at what she’d mentioned so casually. What would happen if her bees had powers?

Daeva’s philosophy was always about making humans stronger, but what would hundreds or thousands of C grade bees do? If Pollen could continue to control them, they would be a serious force to be reckoned with.

“Miles?” Pollen asked again, and I replayed what she’d just asked me in my head.

“Even if I scooped this ant hill out and destroyed everything in it, chances are there are some out of the hills right now.” I rubbed at my chin, restraining the giant ant and dampening its power. “Right now we are going to take this guy back to Skel. If we could actually give your bees power, would that be interesting to you?”

So far these ants hadn’t caused a problem, I would see what the mad scientists had for ideas and see if I couldn’t help Pollen’s bees first.

“Huh? That was just an idle wish.” She seemed confused.

“But what if it was a real one?.” I smirked.

Pollen leaned on me again. “Huh. I could get used to dating a god.”

“Gods can be a little demanding in some ways. They like lots of kisses.” I leaned over her, this time lifting us back up in a carriage to protect us from another upset ant.

She gave me another of her sweet kisses, and I greedily sucked her lips and drew her tongue into my mouth.

A pat on my chest was my signal to break the kiss. “Okay, as hot as you are, let's table this until we aren’t in the middle of monster ant infested woods with a pissed off man-sized ant floating nearby. I know you can protect me, but it’s giving me a little of the heebie jeebies.”

“Come on then.” I suppressed the power of the ants around the hive and picked out a few dozen of them, just in case one wasn’t enough for Skel. “Hold on.”

I didn’t hold back this time. The carriage shot across the forest, farms and stopped right in front of Skel’s place. I placed us down, dismissing the carriage and walking into Skel’s laboratory with the small mass of ants.

Pollen was a little disoriented from the movement and hurried to catch up to me.

Skel looked up from a microscope. “Oh. Hello?” It came out as a question.

“I discovered something interesting. Mind if I show you? It needs a little space.” I smirked as Pollen followed me into the lab, looking around with a strange sort of wonder at the mad scientist’s cobbled together space.

Skel put a cover over the microscope and nodded. “I trust you’ll keep this surprise from damaging my equipment?”

Hovering just a single ant over an open table, I stopped suppressing its power and it was already in enough distress that it used it immediately.

An eight foot ant monster was frozen by my power. Its gaze had a little more emotion than I had expected from a bug. It was pissed.

Skel got up from where she’d been working and approached without concern. “Interesting. You found this outside the city?” She didn’t sound particularly interested though. A powered monster wasn’t exactly new.

I nodded. “A whole ant hill of them. There might be more; I didn’t look harder. Pollen here has been complaining to the guards, but they couldn’t find what had bothered her hives.”

Thinking back to the feeling of being watched in the farms, I wondered if it had been an ant stalking me.

Skel looked at Pollen, who was now ignoring the lab and looking up at me with a smile.

I knew without looking that Skel would be smirking in her own special way.

“Then, well done. Animal mutations aren’t unheard of, but you think that we have a powered queen pumping these out?” She asked her tone had a little more interest in it now.

I nodded. “They all seem to have the same mutation even.”

“Of course. The drones and workers are going to be genetically the same and raised very similarly. You might have some different mutations in other populations as queens spread. Or maybe you could think of all of them as an extension of a single powered queen.” Skel frowned at the ant. “Can you shrink it back?”

I cut its power off and had it shrink back. “Its power is larger than its body too.”

Pollen’s soft body pressed against me as she looked over at the small ball of ants I had brought. “What do we do?”

“Well, we can put some poison out and kill them.” Skel offered.

“I had a different idea. Is there anyone that could control ants? Also, could we mimic this power in bees? Does monster fruit work for animals?” I asked the series of questions that had popped into my brain.

Skel’s jawbone shifted, and I could tell she instantly was lost in thought. “We can experiment. I love experiments. Some of Daeva’s old notes say that there were dogs and pigs as part of the testing, but something like an ant is a far cry from the intended subjects. What’s the goal here?”

I pointed to Pollen. “She controls and communicates with bees. Imagine her having control of thousands of mutant bees.”

“Ah, quite the boost to her power. But why do we need thousands of giant bee monsters?” Skel leaned on her elbow. “I’m more tempted to have you help me make someone with a power like Frankie’s. The willing participant is coming over shortly; I was actually about to send for you.”

“Then let me wait here. What do you want me to do with these?” I held up the ball of ants.

“Come here. We’ll put them in a reinforced jar that we pump full of carbon dioxide. It should keep them sedated.” She found a metal flask and took off a stopper that clamped down on it before she wheeled over a canister of gas.

“You seem to have everything.” I joked.

Skel stared at me with her eerie eyes. “I don’t have the ability to place orders. Nothing goes to waste in my lab.”

I stuffed the ants in and let her tip the container back as she let out a hiss from the canister. “I’m going to keep the gas in when you tell me.” I offered to help her process.

“It sinks in a closed vessel. Just let me handle this.” Skel tipped the metal flask back up and sealed it, applying the clamp to keep the lid tight. “They should stay alive for a few days while being sedated.”

There was a knock at her door, and a woman I didn’t recognize poked her head in. “Hi. Am I interrupting something?” She looked over us, noticing Pollen leaning against me.

“No. This is Miles, the God King of Fertility. He’s the one able to help shape your power transformation.” Skel waved a bony hand at me.

The red haired woman burst through the door with that introduction, rushing up to me grabbing my hand and pumping it excitedly. “Oh wow. You are even more handsome in person. And that scar on your jaw makes you look rugged as fuck.”

Pollen cleared her throat.

“Oh, sorry Pollen. Congrats.” She winked at the bee woman on my side.

“Thank you. Miles is helping me with a problem with my hives. But I think I got an offer to date him?” She left it as a question as she looked up at me.

“You’ll come back to the temple tonight. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with you being all alone at night with the potential ant monsters.” I smiled.

She shivered a little at the thought. “Fine. But I can’t leave my bees for too long.”

The new girl giggled. “Hi, I’m Cassidy.” She pulled back her hand and waved.

“Hi Cassidy.” I chuckled a little at how nervous and excitable she was. “Why do you want Frankie’s power?”

“Uh, because it’s super useful, duh! And my current one is really lame. I was going to just do monster fruit, but Skel here told me to hold off a few days ago.” She was quite chatty.

“Well Cas—“ Skel was cut off as Frankie stepped in.

“Sorry I’m late. There’s this new girl that the God King pawned off on me. She’s working hard though.” Frankie paused seeing me. “Shit.”

“No, the comment is fair. Vaash has the powers, but not the experience. I saw the opportunity to give her means to participate in the city and did it.”

Frankie shook her head. “No, I know. She’s perfect for the job you set her up with. She just doesn’t have a clue what to do, so I ended up managing her more than working on my mill. But she’s got half the silo built. I’m sure she’ll have it finished when I get back and it’ll be a big upgrade. Might need you to take the old one out and put the new one in. Not sure if I trust her not to take the whole mill down. I don’t want to know what happens if she tries to rip out the stone silo by force.”

“Good point. I’ll swing by after this.” I had a feeling she was right, and my power could easily do what she was asking.

“Okay, so what do you need, big boy?” Frankie stood there with a hand on her hip.

“Just stand there and look pretty. I just have to reference your power.” I turned to the chatty woman. “Cassidy, just lay down and get her comfortable. Normally we sedate the patient, but I don’t think it actually hurts. It was just convenient.” Letting my power billow out, I wrapped it around Frankie’s power to get a sense of it as she frowned at me with her hands on her hips.

Skel pulled Cassidy over onto the table that had previously had a giant ant monster and apologized as she strapped her in for everyone’s safety.

“Wells has explained the worst case scenario to me. I have my tools ready.” Skel stated calmly.

“Worst case?” Cassidy asked, a little less calm.

“Worst case is that your body tries to become a cancerous giant. But that’s why i’m here. We can stop it using some quick incisions by the good doctor here.” I opened my eyes, feeling comfortable with Frankie’s power.

Skel stood next to Cassidy, looking particularly terrifying with a scalpel in her bony hands.

“Let’s get to work.” I stepped forward, giving Cassidy a reassuring nod.

She nodded back, and I felt Pollen lean into my side in interest.

I’d forgotten she was thinking about taking monster fruit. I hoped that what she was about to see would make her feel more comfortable.