Vernon

Glad you could join us for the next fortunate episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

Rushed back into the bower, Cassandra strained her eye stalks and stretched on tiptoe to see beyond a wall of drones six drones deep that blocked her from leaving. Beyond that protection, the Hive Elite waged a vicious air battle against the renegade wasps.

“Look!” she shouted. “Bats have come! So many bats — they’re helping the Hive Elite!”

“What is that?” Elliot demanded of Vernon.

“My greatest shame,” he whispered, his wings hanging limp from his slumped shoulders, eerily green in the mushroom light.

“I don’t understand,” Elliot said. “Those aren’t the Marauders from Bog. Why did they attack the Queen? Is Fen at war, too? Does King Arnie know?”

“It isn’t exactly a war,” Vernon replied, “more the wasps’ personal vendetta against Queen Lilian.” He held up a hand to stop Elliot’s next question. “I know — my own kind.” He blinked quickly and drew himself erect, meeting Elliot’s puzzled gaze with tentative, yet defiant, pride. “But I am not one of them.”

Cassandra joined them. “It looks like the battle’s over. Thank goodness the Queen’s troops won.”

“They always do,” Vernon assured her.

More confused than before, Elliot asked, “Then why would wasps attack the Queen?”

Vernon sighed. “It’s a long tale of friendship and envy, betrayal and greed, and love that was not meant to be…”

To be continued. . .

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