Music is "Violet Hill" by Coldplay.

Picture is Claudia Doumit as Sarai.

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Hylaeus Hilaris

Commonly referred to as the Hilaris yellow-faced bee, Hylaeus Hilaris is native and endemic to Hawaii. It is known only from a single population of unknown size in the coastal shrub-lands of the Mo'omomi Preserve on the island of Molokai. In September 2016, along with six other Hawaiian Hylaeus species, H. Hilaris was listed for protection under the United States Endangered Species Act. This marked the first listing for any bee species in the United States, despite plenty of bees being threatened, endangered, or practically extinct for centuries.

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Chapter Twenty-Nine: Hilaris

Magic clashes against magic in an array of colors and energy. Even with the sounds of the fight and the alarms blaring overhead, it's hard to hear anything over my own hammering heartbeat. My wings take me high, among bees both of natural and supernatural births.

I give everything I've got into fighting against Max's bees, and with Wanda by my side, we seem to be keeping toe-to-toe with him. She throws a blast of chaos magic at him. He tosses one back at her. I use my connection with Melizza's hive to help them navigate the swarm of Maximoffica Rurikis.

The others do just as much to help. Half of them have weapons of their own--whether that be brass knuckles like Peggy, a pistol like Pepper, an ax like Sam, or a make-shift baton like Clint--and they're using them to take down as many bees as they can. Some of the more technically intelligent students, like Tony and Vision, stay with the hive to try and get Stephen and Loki free. But as for the majority of us, they're using anything they can get their hands on to take on the hoard.

"Anyone got a really fucking big magnet?" Bucky shouts, picking up a stadium chair and using it as a shield as a group of a hundred bees makes a hard dive for him.

"That would be nice!" Bruce exclaims in return. He cuts an electric cable that was once attached to the stage lighting. He lifts it into the air, and every artificial bee that comes near the sparking wires collapses onto the ground.

Melizza lands on my shoulder again and talks in my ear, saying, "Tell us what to do, Your Majesty."

I turn my attention downward, towards Tony, Vision, and Nat as they try to hack past Max's security on the magical prison. While Max himself is still engaged in a serious spellcraft battle with Wanda across the room, his bees have decided to turn their attention towards my friends. They're diving straight for them, and it's only due to Thor and Carol's pure stubbornness that they have any protection at all.

"There!" I exclaim, pointing towards the stage. "Create a vortex around them. Max's bees will get confused just long enough for my friends to take them out."

"As you wish, Your Majesty!" she replies, then soars from my shoulder towards the stage. Every one of her fellow honeybees follows her. "To the stage!"

I trail behind them, taking up the rear. I put myself between them and Max's bees, giving them enough time to create the protective tunnel around the others. I stretch out my arms and glare at Max's bees with a firm determination. I know they can't hear me through the hive mind since they're not real bees, but with the vortex of Apis Mellifera behind me, it's just enough to make them hesitate for a few moments.

I turn around and beat my wings as fast as they can go. Nearly disappearing with speed, they create a powerful gust that takes Max's bees off their mission and out of attack formation. They blow backward, into the balcony seating, far away from the stage.

"Got it!" Tony exclaims.

He jumps back from the magical prison, and Melizza's hive disperses. The metal sphere opens, revealing the sleeping forms of Stephen Strange and Loki Odinson. The magical binds fade away, and the two students awaken.

I grin widely as they stumble out of their confinement, eager to see them after nearly a day of being held prisoner. Stephen shakes his head, and Loki leans on his brother for support.

"What's going on?" Stephen asks, dazed and confused. "Where are we?"

"Today's the conference," I sign to him as he looks up at me, surprised by the sight of me flying. "Max took you prisoner, and that was over a day ago. Everyone here knows about magic. Max's released the bees, and we're all fighting him." I point to Wanda and Max a few meters away. "Fight him. Destroy the bees. You got that?"

Stephen shakes off the disarray and exhaustion, giving a firm nod. Loki pulls himself up and nods in agreement. "Let's do this."

Stephen lunges from the group to throw a sigil shield up in front of all of us as Max's bees recover and fly straight for us. Having learned his lesson from the day in the woods, he puts spikes in front of the shield. When the bees collide with it, they destroy themselves on impact. Pieces of metal and sparks of magic fall to the ground, leaving the shield completely intact.

"I like this guy," Rhodey comments with a wide smile.

I grab the nearest hefty object, a broken piece of metal from the hive, and toss it to him. "Defend yourself," I sign with a smirk.

He catches it easily and nods. "Thanks."

"Well, get fighting, won't you?" Loki says with an eye-roll as he turns to the hive. He conjures a spell that starts to take the metal apart.

Before I can respond, my attention is brought to a sound of pain coming from behind me. My wings take me towards her before I realize the sound came from Wanda. Melizza shouts my name, but I don't listen. Wanda is on the ground, pinned between the back wall, the balcony overhead, and Max in front of her. After our fight against his bees and the sorcerer's spellwork, there are only a few hundred left. He's summoned the remainder of them to himself, both for protection and as a weapon.

"I told you to let this go," he says, almost sad.

Wanda pulls herself to her feet, eyes spotting me flying speedily across the stadium. She shakes her head softly, warning me to stay away, but I don't relent. I push through Maximoffica Rurikis and hover between Wanda and her uncle, fists clenched and eyes glaring.

"Leave her alone," I sign to him. "You don't want to do this, Maximoff."

"You're right, I don't!" He raises his clenched fist, swirling with magic. "You're forcing my hand."

"You're a coward." I extend my arm and summon Melizza and her hive to me. Obeying the call, they soar towards Wanda and I, putting themselves between us and him. It's my army against his, and I have faith that with the help of our friends, we'll come out on top. But god only knows what kind of losses we'll experience. I really don't want to risk it unless I have to.

Melizza must hear the concern and hesitation in my mind. "It is either us or all bees," she assures me. "I can be brave now so others will not have to be later."

Knowing she's right, the determination sets in my mind. "Don't do this," I sign desperately. "We can find another way."

"It's not too late!" Wanda adds. "No one has seen what's happened here. Everyone is outside. All they saw was a fire alarm. We can stop this right now, Uncle Max. You, me, my friends: we can work together."

"Everyone has failed the planet," he states, a last-ditch attempt to justify his actions, but even this I know he doesn't really believe. "I'm the only one who can save them."

"You're not," I sign in a reassuring manner. "Not anymore. We can save them. Together. The right way."

Max keeps his fist held high, but I see a flicker of consideration cross his face. After a moment, his fist lowers an inch or two, and he doesn't say anything in reply.

His bees turn towards him, almost accusatory in nature. He closes his eyes and shakes his head. "What have I done."

They snap. As Max lowers his fist entirely, his bees go berserk. They move instantly from hovering in place to charging Melizza and her colony. The honeybees fly out of the way, trying to dodge the larger, mechanical monstrosities, but they're fueled by magic.

"Stop!" Max shouts, horrified at the loss of control over his creation. "I didn't tell you to do this!"

The bees don't listen. They continue to attach the real bees. I use my connection to the hive mind to help them dodge their assailants, but there's little I can do from here. I turn sharply to Max. "We warned you!"

Max shakes his head in disbelief, watery eyes gazing up at the curse he's created. "This was never what I wanted!"

"This is what happens when you mix magic and science," Wanda tells him. "We tried to warn you."

He runs his hands through his dark hair, stumbling backward. "What have I done?"

Wanda extends her hands and uses the chaos in the room to her advantage. She runs to the stage with magical speed, gets in front of the metal hive, and draws their attention to her instead of Melizza and her hive.

"He said to stop!" she shouts, grabbing a handful of them with scarlet energy. She throws them onto the floor, crushing them under intense weight.

They turn towards her for a moment, then look back towards me in mechanical precision. I look behind me and see the object of their desire: the open doors that lead to the lobby and, eventually, to the outside world.

"Help me close them!" I sign towards Max.

He doesn't see me. He's still too stunned by what's happened that he's frozen in place, his eyes glued to the metal hive.

"Uncle Max!" Wanda shouts.

It's too late. What's left of Mxaimoffica Rurikis has blown past both of us, the swarm heading through the lobby and towards the large windows that lead to the world outside. I turn to run after them, the honeybees and my friends trailing closely behind. We get to the lobby just in time to see fire trucks and police cars outside with the entirety of the conference staff, guests, and speakers. They look to the conference hall just in time to see the entire glass face of the building shatter.

The bees burst through, causing pieces of glass to fly everywhere, and on everyone. Police officers shoot at what they don't understand, and pretty much everyone else screams and runs for cover. Part of the swarm breaks off from the group and starts attacking the crowds while the other shoots straight for the sky. Once they're out of sight, they're gone for good. We'll never catch them now.

"Should we go after them?" Melizza asks me.

I turn back to the building and shake my head. "Stay back," I communicate silently to the colony hiding inside. "Get out of here. Hide. Humans are outside."

Melizza makes a sound of worry but obeys my command. I see her and her hive fly in the opposite direction, leaving through the back door.

Just as things start to get way out of control, the bees stop midair. Their wings stop beating and they begin to fall to the earth. Every single one of them--from the ones diving into the crowds to the ones making a getaway into the skies--seems to have just turned off.

"What the hell?" Wanda curses from my side, turning back towards the building.

Through our friends and the broken glass, I see Max slowly making his way from the conference room and through the lobby. He holds a part of the metal hive tightly in his hand, a piece of metal with a bunch of wires protruding from it.

"Uncle Max?" Wanda asks, eyeing the odd object in his hand.

Max slows to stand in front of us. His eyes are downcast, and he stares at the wires as he hands them to me. "I had a fail-safe installed," he replies. "Just in case."

When he looks up at me, I can still see the surprise and confusion, but there's also sadness there. He's overcome with guilt when he looks up at Wanda and I. Whatever he's done, he knows he was responsible, and I truly don't think he knew his bees would turn like that. At that moment, I see that Max was never the bad guy. He was only a good guy with a bad plan, trying to do the right thing.

"This is all my fault," he says to Wanda and me in a low voice. "I had no idea they would do that. I...I should've listened to you. Both of you. I never should've taken your friends and shut you out."

Wanda reaches over and takes his hand between hers. She gives him a small smile and a nod. "I know."

He turns to me with an expression of a kicked puppy. "I really hope they didn't hurt any more of your bees."

An agitated police officer steps forward. "What the hell was that?" she exclaims, to anyone who might have answers.

"That was an accident," I sign to her, and Wanda translates.

"Like hell! You got several of my people seriously hurt, and this property is in horrible condition. I want to know who's responsible right now, otherwise I'm taking you all in."

Max steps forward, despite Wanda's pleas not to. "This was all my doing," he states. "Take me. I'm responsible."

"Max, this was you?" one of the speakers, Julia Hill, asks in a shocked tone.

He nods and releases Wanda's hand. "This was my big reveal for the Fair. What I didn't realize is how badly the design and AI had gone wrong. I created a monster, one that hurt people, one that could have killed them."

"Uncle--" Wanda starts to plead.

Max turns back to her and offers a sad smile. "It's okay, Wanda. This is what's best."

He pulls back, and the police officer takes him into custody. This isn't the end that I pictured, and I know it wasn't for Wanda either. We had come to terms with the fact that Max was deep into dark magic and a project that was going to kill all the bees. We were convinced that the only way to stop him was to take him down.

But we never thought he might've been as lost as we were.

I pull her close to me, wrapping my arms around her, and let her lean into me as they take Max away. The cleanup begins, and we're escorted away from the broken glass outside the building. I keep close to my friends as we wait outside the Fair, standing among the guests and speakers alike in the courtyard of Violet Hill.

This day didn't end any way like I thought it would.

END CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.