A Bug's Life: The Ant Queen

Chapter 4

A Threatening Visit (Part I)

After several seconds of silence, a plump abdomen had pierced through the gravelly ceiling with its long pointy stinger, creating a massive hole, while soil and pebbles rained down below. Then, flying down into the chamber, screeching loudly at the ants, were white-striped black hornets; their faces were white and wore walnut shells as helmets and wielded splinters as spears.

As the ants scattered throughout the chamber, screaming in terror, the hornets were swarming all over the place, chasing them, while some of them were crawling on the ceiling and even on the walls. The Queen and her daughters watched in horror, as more and more of the invading hornets came down through the hole.

After a while of what it seemed like they were never going to stop coming, the last hornet dropped down and struck the ground hard, freezing everyone in the chamber and causing them to turn to look at her.

Unlike the other hornets, however, she was much bigger and more monstrous than the rest of them and was mostly black, except for their whitish face and her chubby abdomen having some white stripes and spots; they were arranged in a pattern that resembled a sinister face. Sitting on top of her head was a golden ring with a green emerald in the middle, which she wore as a crown.

When the hornets present got down on their knees and bowed their heads before that hornet, all the ants gasp in realisation that that one hornet was their queen. Once the hornet queen opened her ghastly green eyes, the Queen looked as if she had seen a ghost that had come back to haunt her; she immediately recognised that hornet queen to be Thistle. Dot quickly hid behind her mother and shrunk in fear, while Atta leaned back and gasped inwardly; she had never seen such a grotesque monster of a bug standing before her and her colony until now.

Only a larva was Atta when the hornets attacked Ant Island; she could barely piece how the invasion happened altogether mentally, nor could she recollect if that was the same insect that once besieged her peaceful home with the swarm, since Thistle appeared different in images she may have had later on in life.

Thistle had put her upper arms behind her back and then steepled her low hands together in a sinister-like manner, grinning slimily, as she began roaming slowly around the chamber, stiffening the intimidated ants with her presence. As soon as she started trekking around the chamber, all of her hornet drones got back up on their feet and immediately stood at attention, making wide berths every time Thistle passed right by them to make room, which in turn forced the ants to back away each time they did.

Once Thistle had locked eye contact with the Queen and her daughters, her slimy grin had widened from cheek to cheek. She then started taking one step after the other, approaching them slowly, making the Queen flinch at every slow step she made. The Queen felt as if her heart had skipped a beat each time Thistle took a step towards her, even though it was beating so fast.

Once she had stopped right in front of them, Thistle lowered herself to face the Queen at her eye level and began sniffing her with the tips of her curled antennas, making her cringe. Thistle then gave her a devious smile of recognition, and at last spoke, "Why, hello there! It's been quite awhile, hasn't it?" "I haven't seen you since... Hmm, let's see. There was that big battle, some fighting and-" Thistle paused, before snapping her fingers in remembrance, "Of course! My embarrassing defeat!"

"Thistle?" the Queen exclaimed softly, aghast to see that this was the same hornet that once invaded Ant Island and tried to massacre the entire colony, so that she could claim the island for herself and her swarm, standing before her right now. "Well, consider me touched to hear that you still remember me. After all, it was you who bargained with that greedy scoundrel and the rest of those bottomless pits to keep us out!" Thistle snarled through her grit teeth, darkening her face slightly.

Upon hearing that, the Queen's eyes bugged out in shock, dumbfounded as to how Thistle knew about the deal she had made with Hopper; she stated that if he and his grasshopper gang were to protect her colony from the hornets, as well as other bugs, they would be compensated with large amounts of food at the end of each year, as their offering to them, to which he definitely accepted. Hopper saw the agreement as the perfect excuse to terrorise the ants even further, without having the need to have his gang ravage their island for their food, and would use it as a scapegoat whenever any one of them would question his abusive tactics.

Thistle chuckled, after seeing the shock on the Queen's face, finding her bewilderment to be quite amusing. "Oh please. You seriously thought that I wouldn't know about that? Well, let's just say that I've had my eyes on you all since the very beginning. But how exactly is not relevant," Thistle asserted, pointing one of her fingers up in the air.

"All that matters is that that one-eyed brute is dead and those grass-hopping rascals are gone; therefore we hornets can finally have our revenge! And this island can finally be ours!" the Queen swallowed hard, realising the seriousness behind Thistle's threat; she already knew Thistle wasn't bluffing when she had declared her threat to her colony, as she had sworn revenge upon them after her defeat at Ant Island years ago.

"This island is not yours to take!" Thistle heard a voice yell out to her, causing her to swirl around to see who dared to speak up against her with such defiance. Who she did not expect to see, however, was one of the ant workers, standing out of the crowd of terrified ants, with a tiny scowl on his face. "Excuse me? Are you talking to me?" Thistle tilted her head to the side, after finding herself baffled by how out of all the ants in the chamber, this random worker was the one that had decided to have the gall to speak up.

"Yeah I'm talking to you!" the furious worker responded. "I still remember what it was like living under control by other bugs, especially by ones that had no right to do so! We didn't kick out the grasshoppers, just for you hornets to come in and control us like they did! Well I say that we as ants are not going to be slaves to any bug anymore!" the worker declared confidently, feeling proud of himself for standing up to Thistle.

After he had finished his little speech, silence had filled the chamber and many of the ants present have turned their focus of attention onto Thistle, who just stood there motionless with a blank expression, dreading her reaction; even some of Thistle's hornet drones, who were all standing in a statue-like posture the entire time, slightly turned their heads to look at her, steadily awaiting her reaction and orders.

After a few moments of silence, soft chuckles from Thistle could be heard, before she started cackling maniacally all of the sudden, spooking all the ants, including the ant worker; Thistle's cackling also made the Queen feel very uncomfortable, as she had never expected this kind of a response from the rageful insect she knew Thistle as. "Oh humorous me! You really thought that we've come here to enslave you all!?" Thistle exclaimed, causing all the ants to exchange looks in bemusement.

After a brief pause, Thistle had motioned one of her drones to seize the worker, to which they did by grabbing him by the shoulders and lifting him off the ground, restraining him; the worker had tried frantically to get himself free from the hornet's grip, but because they were much bigger and stronger than him, it was no use. "What good would you ants be as slaves, if you're all dead to us?" Thistle cheekily asked the restrained worker, with a murderous smile.

"Get the nutcracker," Thistle had ordered another one of her hornets, earning herself a simple nod of affirmation from them. The hornet made their way towards the spot where the light was coming from the hole and flew out of it to get the aforesaid object. "The nutcracker?" both the Queen and Atta whispered in unison nervously, unsure of whether or not they would want to find out what the nutcracker was exactly. Thistle had twisted her already wide smile upon noticing the nervous expressions on the Queen and Atta's faces, knowing that they were in for a surprise.

To be continued...

Quick Author's Note:

Hey guys, FireAntKing2311 here, and apologies for bit of a long absence, I had a lot of stuff that I had to take care of, like college work, assignments etc. and I had a bit of a writer's block with this chapter.

This chapter was the one I was looking forward to the most, but it has proven to be quite a challenge for me to write this one, so what I've decided to do is to split this chapter into two parts, and I should have the second part of this chapter hopefully in a couple of days.

I just want to say that I have planned out almost the entire outline of this story, so I know what chapters to write and where the characters are going to end up and are going to do in each chapter, but sometimes I would have a bit of a problem regarding the execution of some chapters, like how they're going to happen and what are some of the lines that the characters are going to say. But I'm sure that all these minor problems will be resolved sooner or later.

Again, apologies for the absence, but here's the first part of the fourth chapter and hopefully the second part will be up in a couple of days. Enjoy!