Bugpocalypse
A/N: This is in answer to the May 2021 Twisting The Hellmouth YAA Site Challenge.
Disclaimer: Buffy is property of Mutant Enemy and Fox Television. Paranoia is property of West End Games via Mongoose Publishing. Worm is property of Wildbow. Shakespeare belongs to Shakespeare and one would assume it to be in the public domain.
June 21st, 2013
Somewhere along the line, someone had screwed up interpreting the Mayan Calendar. Everyone who had celebrated a lack of the world ending in 2012 was now being unpleasantly surprised.
As usual, the harbingers of coming events were the earth tremors. Every since Sunnydale had collapsed, Cleveland had been seeing a growing number of them. These, however, were the worst any of the slayers could ever remember.
At first no one noticed. After all, unless they are in your bathroom or kitchen, who really takes note of ants or cockroaches. Unless they are buzzing your face or ears, who pays attention to gnats and flies.
Then again, who in their right mind would have expected a demon summoning ritual performance from the American Association of Beekeepers?
So here, on the Summer Solstice. A time when demonic activity was supposed to be at its lowest ebb and many of the girls were off visiting far away beaches and worshiping that golden orb on the day it drove their sworn enemy to ground the longest. The apocalypse began.
And so only a few. An unhappy, sunworshiping deprived few. Such a small band of sisters, stood firm as the yawning chasm opened.
As the biblical plague swept out from the Hellmouth in a black cloud and undulating blanket they began to hear words coming up from the depths.
"It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires"
"What is that?" One of the girls asked?
The cracks in the ground grew larger. More bugs flowed outward.
"As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more"
Long, limber feelers slid up the edges of the chasm and began to rise above the surrounding land. Growing in height and girth as they were pushed up from below. Waving and undulating in a familiar and yet deeply disturbing fashion.
"That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company"
An older, bespectacled man stood behind the line. His chanting of the ritual to close the infernal bridge between worlds broken by the puzzle of the words he heard. "Agincourt?"
Involuntary screams broke out amongst the defenders as a head, somehow larger around than the great hole it was climbing from soon pushed its way into the air. Mandibles flickering as glossy black, beady eyes the size of Volkswagens peered out at them.
"That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian."
And as the booming, stentorian tones of the speech vibrated through the air, the immense head began to be dwarfed by an impossibly larger thorax pushing it high into the air.
Brave girls charging forward to hack at thick impenetrable armor. Their swords bouncing off with loud ringing tones.
Great legs swept out, knocking the nearest girls flying. Not so much an attack as merely them swinging free from the tight confinement of the now immense hole in the ground.
"Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—"
Now standing higher than any building in the city, the arthropod was still yet only halfway out of the ground and continuing to scratch and claw its way even higher.
Having no effect the defenders began to fall back. "Mr. Giles, what do we do?"
The question lacking for an answer as the tree sized feelers traced great arcs through the sky and the creature began to tilt ominously in various directions.
"Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,"
Now half-again as high as it was before and visible for miles in every direction, the great swaying came to an end as the creature pitched forward. The defenders scattering as it landed across the surrounding land and buildings. Nearly eight hundred and eighty-three feet long. Over ninety-two feet wide. One hundred and seventy-five feet tall from ground to the top of its carapace.
"But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;"
Sitting upon his arse, where he had landed upon the ground's violent complaint of the creature's arrival. Glasses and handkerchief in opposing hands attaining a state of both perpetual motion and extreme cleanliness. Rupert Giles struggled to find appropriate words. Words that would embody proper British understatement and decorum.
"BLOODY HELL! IT"S A TITANIC, SHAKESPEARE QUOTING COCKROACH!"
A/N: Dimensions stated are those of the aforenamed White Star Liner.