#jika

Monster March 2026

Day 20- Alien

Klip and Hazi 

Re-incubation 

Klip felt like he was going to go insane. He paced the royal comb, looking over at Hazi in an incubation cell every few seconds. 

As a Super Consort, he only needed a single night to get enhancement protocols implemented. 

Hazi’s sisters had needed three days. Because while they weren’t ‘Super’ they were still royal by design and took to the enhancements well. Super Queen Kat? She had only needed hours. 

This- was day 6. 

Officially twice as long as everyone else, and counting, and the control panel was only showed a maddening 3% of progress on the procedures and protocols processed since this morning. All while his own sanity felt like it was dangling by 3 strands of wet tissue paper. 

Everyone had already done everything they could. Even the Reverend Dowager Mother was out of ideas. The entire jika hive collective was now being used, on the universal scale, reaching every single hive of jika. The ones closest to them could only answer with things they had already done. Even Super Queen Kat had mixed super queen royal jelly in with the royal jelly to be fed through a feeding tube into Hazi, hoping that she would process faster if her mind and body had better fuel to work with. 

It felt like all they could do now was wait. 

And this wait was an agonizing torture unto itself. 

Klip had become more anxious, possessive, and paranoid with every passing day past that three day mark, her sisters had processed at. He was adamant that he was not walking out of this royal nursery comb without Hazi, no matter how long it would take. And anyone who would try to take him from here without her, would die trying. 

Super Queen Kat had to use the Hive Mind to give a direct order and make him take a break and rest and eat and relieve himself and let Hazi’s other sisters take a shift of watching over Hazi in incubation so that she was always watched and looked over and kept safe. But he still slept, ate and used the small lavitory in here, having the others bring him food that he barely tasted, only to be eaten mechanically, the flavors barely being registered stimuli because his focus on Hazi and this re-incubation process was so singular, that it was like even his own body's needs were ignorable because the only thing that mattered, that needed attention was watching and guarding Hazi and nothing else. 

It was suggested that he take up a creative hobby to help him pass the time. He already had. In the first three days of Hazi’s incubation- he remodelled their private quarters, he made it their own private sanctum. Large enough and luxurious enough befitting a Dowager Hive Mistress, second only to the Queen herself. It was only 10% smaller than Super Queen Kai’s royal sanctum. And he hadn’t done so by himself. Every royal jika helped. The unmated consorts of Queen Kai, who were like little brothers of Hazi and her true sisters, all did the most to make sure the sanctum would be in Hazi’s tastes. Because if they made it too grand, too luxurious, too much…whatever, Hazi would not feel comfortable, or accept it and would instead move to the previous quarters she had always shared with her sisters. They had done all that work and when it was that 3 day mark, they all convened in the Royal Nursery Comb to be there to welcome Hazi back. 

That’s where the reality shock hit them. 

The data pad that controlled the cell, had only shown the message- Processing. None of them thought to look at the status bar. None of them thought to look at the individual protocols and processes to see how far along she was. In three days, she had only done just under half of the protocols and processes. 

That couldn’t be right. 

It was practically inconceivable. 

They instantly ran diagnostics on the cell itself, to make sure it was working at a full 100% power and 100% efficiency, 100% capacity, thinking that the cell they put her into had been faulty in some way, to explain why she had only progressed half as much in the same amount of time. There had to be something, anything getting in the way.

They even looked into removing her from the cell she was in and put her into another one. But, unfortunately, if they had tried that, mid process, it would corrupt the current cycle, making her restart the process from the beginning.

So she stayed where she was and now, it was an exercise in patience to everyone, because the cell was running perfectly, the procedures and protocols and enhancements were still being done as quickly, efficiently and thoroughly as they needed to go. The problem wasn’t the cell, and it wasn’t quite Hazi’s fault either.

It was the volume of proceedures and protocols. Otherwise- it was running at capacity. It was already going as fast as it could go, it was just being buried in pages and pages of procedure and protocols. Because Hazi was the Dowager Hive Mistress, and that station and responsibility meant that even if the queen passed, she could take over the hive until a new queen could be established, or, replace her as queen if the circumstances were that dire. She was getting so much more than any other queen, super or otherwise could ever get because she was the first and only Dowager Hive Mistress to a Superqueen, and especially since Super Queen Kat had been a speed run queen, she needed all the help she could get, because if she failed, speedrunning queens through incubation for hives needed immediate changes to current or failed or dead and dying queen's rulership. Kat was bound and determined to not let the best recourse the Jika had to saving hives when the worst happened in time frames that were shorter than could be fixed, problems that needed to be solved in as fast as possible. She did not wish for all of it to die with her. She did not want to be the reason what had saved nearly countless colonies, would no longer be used while they would have to test and try any other options with what would surely be staggard success but also, failures that would mean entire hives, numbering in the hundres, thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, would die. All knowledge specific to that hive, in that location, lost forever, hundreds and thousands of years of knowledge, gone, and needed to be relearned, their place in those plances re-earned.

But Hazi, her support was the only shield Kat had against such things, she had begged and pleaded and had to be honest about her own shortcomines, her own failures so far, be honest about her hold, that from most other metrics seemed assured, but in reality, was very fragile. She was the palm of a hand, Hazi was the fingers. True, if given enough time, she would grow fingers of her own, but now, she was barely a stub of a palm herself. And Hazi had been overcompensating since the beginning. And if anything happened to Hazi, without those fingers of the hand holding onto her reign for her while she finished growing just the palm, before she could start to grow real fingers who could do anything on their own, she absolutely depended on Hazi, the future and potentially millions, even billions of lives depended on Hazi, continuing to be the fingers.

So, Kat's requests had been answered, with support from the entire Jika race. Since Hazi was the first, but also the most important, and because of the fragile situation and especially because so much was riding on her success, Hazi was getting every enhancement, every upgrade possible. Because this was a Super Hive now. It needed a Super Dowager Mistress, and only Hazi could step up and do and be that.

It was absolutely needed, because when she was ‘saved’ when Queen Kai took over the hive from Hazi’s true mother, Hazi had been at the very last stage of development, only needing the codes so her body could make eggs and had already gotten half of the codes to take on any hive mind as a queen, before the process was stopped by her predecessor and she had been ripped out of that cell and put into a ‘nursery drone’ cell. She was a true princess, only two processes away from being a fully realized queen herself. 

That’s why this wait didn’t make sense. She was the most advanced out of everyone in her own ‘batch’ of princesses that ‘had a career change’. This should have been easy, it should have been quick because she already had the best foundation and had built herself up from there to be truly great. This was like adding just one more level to a skyscraper that was already built and engineered to be magnificently tall. 

So when they looked at how and in what order the various protocols, procedures and enhancement were placed, they were already organized perfectly and would be done in the best sequence possible, because Hazi had ordered them that way, they practically perfect in design and implementation to that point. 

However, there were only so many protocols, procedures and enhancements one could do simultaneously, but those were set to be done at the end of the sequence. Because most of them needed to be the one and only protocol being processed at a time because they were very complex and needed to be done in the very strict order of processess in each protocol. The first were the most important, and would be pivitol for all others, and that was to expand, and rebuild and reinforce the basis, the foundation for everything else to be built on top of that.

The first three days had been basically been digging down, creating many layers of understructure, substructure, and basically build the greatest ‘vault’ mentally into the fortress that would be her mind. All of it was laying ground work. It wasn’t until halfway through the fourth day when all of that finished and then proceeded to build the framework in the strongest possible way and sense because it took that long just to build the foundations strong enough to support the structure on top, that's what had taken so long, but with so much to do and so much to build on top of that, it was absolutely necessary. But at the same time, it was those very same enhancements, protocols and processes in the substructure - that were the most important ones for Hazi to receive and have. The ones that she needed the most. 

Even Super Queen Kat, even as a Super Queen, would never get even half of this, because of the speed run, it meant that she had gotten the bare necessities as the call to take over a failing queen in one of the largest hives the jika had. She did have enough to take over the hive, it was the operating it, especially when the hive was so entreanched with the prettiest deathworld known in the universe- that she was struggling with and would have already failed if she had not had Hazi, even after she re-emerged from her own 'supplemental' re-incubation, so that she would quickly catch up to 'proper Super Queen status', she still lacked what every other Super Queen had, experience. Hazi had that experience, and with her help and guidance, Queen Kat could and would be ok.

So Kat had, before Hazi even entered the incubation cell, added Super Queen jelly in a ratio that Hazi's non super body could handle. And while the change in diet had helped move Hazi along to a degree, it helped her process faster, but only at a rate of about 10%-15%, not nearly the 50%-75% as was hoped for and projected to be by Kat, before she had reworked the math, and realized she had made a mathmatical error in putting in what she thought was the right numbers into the hive mind to run the calculations in the first place. Rookie, stupid, should have seen it and caught it mistake that Hazi would have caught if she had double checked Kat's work.

She always had before, but for this, Hazi had 'trusted' Kat to do it herself, on her own, she would need to be the Super Queen, handling everything on her own, even if that would only be while Hazi was in incubation. Hazi had even ran a 'test run' to see if Kat could get through hours, then a shift, then a day, of Hazi doing absolutley nothing, Kat doing everything, giving advice and counsel only at first, the whole day test run, she wouldn't even give Kat that. All of it was so that Kat could prove to herself that she could do it, to build up Kat's confidence in herself, which she didn't realize was lacking so severely until she realized just how low it was, because once she accepted Hazi's help and kept things in Hazi's hands, while 'Kat grew up' a bit more on her own. Everything worked perfectly and it was like the Hive ran itself. But in truth, it was Hazi running the hive for Kat that was the reason for it running as perfectly as it did.

So far Kat had tried to put off making serious final decisions off for as long as she could, trying to wait for Hazi to come back. After the first three days, and only getting a 45% completion rate for the protocols and processes, Kat had to come to the terrifying realization that she would need to actually be the Super Queen she was supposed to be already, until further notice. She was doing her best, but, cracks were forming, processes were slower, and didn't get implimented or used in the most efficient or even 'correct' of ways. Kat now knew and felt true 'growing pains'.

But, the super queen jelly had meant that the groundwork that was already laid was done and done well and to the best, most perfect degree possible, and ensured that all future enhancements, procedures and protocols were given the same standard of perfection or as close to it as possible. It was just taking longer than anyone expected or had hoped for.

For Kilp, however, his job title was literally to be Hazi's Isthantari, to care for the Dowager Hive Mistress solely and compltely. But with Hazi still incubation, and technically not needing him, to try to keep some sense of sanity, sagacity even- Klip needed something, anything that would be something he could do, while not leaving the Royal Nursery Comb. 

So he spun and experimented with his own silk. He ate all kinds of things to turn his own silk into just about every shade and hue of every color in every spectrum they could see in, including ultraviolet and infrared. He made Hazi a huge wardrobe that needed an entire wall’s length of a closet to put it all in, often having Hazi’s sisters come and get the garments and take them to Hazi’s sanctum and put them away in an order that was pleasing, so that the colors would go from one end of the spectrums that they could see to the other end of the spectrum. It had only taken him two days to spin all of that, and thanks to Super Queen Kat giving Klip super queen jelly, such a feat that would take anyone else weeks and months, he had done in hours and days. He even spun his own silk extra thick so he could make a proper yarn, again in every shade and hue of every color across the spectrum, all so he could knit his own silk and make warm fuzzy socks, mittens, sweaters, hats, blankets, pillows. And that was in addition to spinning a brand new nest, for when she would emerge.

But he could only do so much with his own silk. And now, he had made a whole set of things in every hue and shade of each color. He had to remodel then rebuild a second space that was essentially storage for everything in the sanctum itself. He was now out of colors, out of spectrums, out of patterns, out of options to try to distract himself while he waited for Hazi to be done. that had only taken hours. It had only been enough of a distraction to last him half a day, not even a full 8 hour shift. It had only taken 6 hours. That left him to pace and obsess over Hazi again.

Every minute of every hour feeling more and more like torture as he got more and more restless. Which was why the other consorts and super consorts and Hazi’s sisters had now resorting to stuffing him into the cell next to Hazi and forcibly put him to sleep so he could sleep at night and actually get restorative sleep. It was practically the same thing as a kid getting shoved into their locker. But instead of it being a bully tactic, it was done to save Klip from over-expanding himself and push himself to a degree that even he couldn’t recover from and would shorten his own lifespan too. They had to resort to pushing him into a cell to sleep starting from night three, because the previous nights, he had been able to sleep on a simple cot, right in front of Hazi’s cell and sleep long enough and well enough to function.

But now? He fought rest and the inability to keep his eyes on Hazi and her progress with a ferocity to a higher, more intensive degree than any other jika in any form of military who were always the most intense of the jika as a species. Even Jago, the Grand General and Admiral of the entire jika military wasn’t this intense, and he had been the most intense jika Klip had known previously. Until this happened and he found he only needed the right motivation to find all the power and engergy he needed to maintain this intensity. Even Jago had a really hard time to get Klip to stand down. Klip had practically turned feral towards anyone who wasn’t Super Queen Kat herself, because she was still his reigning queen and the only one who had absolute power and control over the hive itself, and over every jika in said hive, including him, and even then, he would hesitate and try to make excuses and try every trick he knew to get himself out of obedience, but to no avail. It had been her order to make him rest in an incubation cell, to force him to sleep. But even she had to physically guide him and had to keep a hand on his chest so he wouldn't try to bolt out of that cell before they could shut the cell door.

Because the progress of Hazi’s enhancement felt like it was going at a glacial pace, Klip and everyone else feared the process would get stuck on something and therefore would leave Hazi stuck in that incubation cell for even longer, even permanently, like a coma. Or he feared that this process would have something, anything that would corrupt the data, corrupt the processes and Hazi would either die, slip into a coma she would never wake up from and practically have to be entombed in that damn incubation cell. Or, it would and could destroy her as the person she was, or she would come out, and have no memories of him, of anyone. Because amnesia was still a thing. Granted it really only happened to the very elderly, when their minds would fragment, their bodies soon followed. He worried that this process would take away all of her individuality and her personality, and as much as the past hurt, it had also made her into the woman she was now, or at least, the woman she was before stepping into that cell. He legitimately feared that something bad would happen and she would go into the incubation cell as Hazi and leave it as someone or something else. And that everyone, especially him, would lose the Hazi they knew and loved. That the Hazi they knew and loved, wouldn’t survive this kind of overhauled, restorative, and enhancing processes and protocols. 

Klip just wanted his Hazi back. 

He would give anything, do anything, just to have her come out of that cell as the same Hazi she went into it as, but fully healed, fully whole, fully restored- the way she should have always been.  

That’s all. 

That’s all he wanted.

His Hazi, alive and well and safe and cared for and happy. Because she made him happy. He wanted to make her happy in return. She loved him, just as much as he loved her and now that he knew the greatest joy and delight in the universe that was to have full and complete love reciprocated, and mirrored back, something that across the entire race, so very few got to enjoy. But for all that she had survived and endured, it was owed to her, by the forces of the cosmos, by Fate, by Karma, by any sense of right, and justice, by any and every deity there was. If there was something, anything, she deserved most beyond the respect her position was owed, it was to be happy, perfectly whole and complete. She deserved to be safe, loved and cared for. It was perfectly reasonable and logical.

Or so, he felt. 

Plus, to have the other unmated consorts also getting ‘private Isthantaries' themselves, which when he first heard of the concept- made no sense to him or anyone else in the super batch that came with him.

Oh, but seeing it and experiencing it first hand? Oh, they were onto something great. The greatest gift, the greatest pleasure and delight, the greatest experience in the cosmos. Something to be treasured and protected and practiced and revered and enjoyed to the full. 

To have your one and only Isthantari and have the other see and treat you the same way so that you were theirs as well?  For them to have you as their one and only Isthantari in return? It was practically divine. She was his Isthantari, and he wished he knew of another name, another term, another word- that had more gravitas and more…intense feeling than that. Isthantari still only meant- One I am devoted to for life. And while he was absolutely devoted to her, there was so much more than just that one thing. 

He was in love with her. He loved her wholly and completely, before all else. He was loyal to her, respected her, revered her, treasured her as the priceless treasure she was. She was absolutely precious, she needed to be treated with the utmost care and given every respect for surviving, for persevering, for still giving her all to a hive, who used to be ruled by a queen who murdered her own sisters. He didn’t know what to do or how to help heal or restore that kind of deep psychological and biological wound. She wore the scars to that, with a dignity that no other jika, male or female, royal or otherwise could ever dream or hope to have. 

And experiencing this, now he felt so much sympathy and empathy for when other people waited while a loved one was in surgery and they were helpless to do anything but wait. Because, this was the jika equivalent of that. And it was torturous. How had the natives to Earth, dealt with this? To the point that it was seen as something that would eventually happen to them, that either they or a loved one was either going to have an accident or an injury or even develop growths or experienced organ failure or literally any other thing you would need surgery for. And treat it with a 'yeah it's stressful when you're in it but you get through it'. He didn't think he was going to get through this. Not when his Hazi was the one on the line.

He was truly humbled, having such a divine being as her, like him, care for him, value him, adore him, admire him, dignify him, respect him, love him, to a degree he would have never known could exist, or even think of or even imagine. He had never been treated with grace and patience before, but yet, when she did all of that, showed all that to him? Was so much more than he could have imagined or fathomed. He felt he was inept trying to reciprocate all of it- to the degree he felt she deserved, a degree already much higher than any other in existence, to the point even Hazi had to urge him to tone it down because it was too much for her to handle and was overwhelmed trying to accept it all. But still, he felt more was owed to her because she made him feel all the ways and senses possible, like he was especially special. She had always treated him as the individual he was. Something that no other queen, super or otherwise could ever or would ever do for their consorts, mated or otherwise. Even as “replaceable” as he felt, how every royal consort felt. She was irreplaceable, she was the only one in the universe like herself. Truly, one of a kind. But yet, she treated him as if he was just as singularly precious as she was. 

He didn’t feel worthy of the wonder that she was, let alone, the wonderful love she gave either, but he worked, every day to try, try to be worthy by being what she needed, what she wanted, which was for him to be himself, as she loved him. 

So here he was, pacing the royal comb, flicking his gaze over to the cell she was in every few seconds, just to make sure everything was ok. Because the seconds he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at the control panel, willing it to move faster. Willing it to finish up already. He just need to make absolutely sure that she was ok, she was safe, she was resting and being restored and then enhanced to a degree no other jika was, on an entire species scale. He also, just needed to make sure that all of this was working and that there was no interruptions to the process that would jeopardize the sequence or anything. 

He had watched, truly captivated on the first day as he saw the scars she received from the forced removal of her internal reproductive organs- the previous, now long since dead- Queen Kai had ordered and inflicted, that was a blanket punishment on her and her other true sisters, even when most were absolutely innocent of the reasons and charges she leveled at them. He got to watch as the scars truly heal and vanish, and the partial cave in on her abdomen had expanded and extended her abdomen again so that it looked like there had never been a trauma wound in the first place. The abdomen smoothed out as her body was able to rebuild itself to what it originally was. 

Maybe…

Hopefully… 

But that didn’t mean the scars it left on her heart and psyche would ever be healed, even though Klip would give or do anything for that to happen. He would have loved to get his hands on a time machine and go back in time to save her and her other sisters from the tyranny of Queen Kai before she unleashed her violent paranoia onto them. But alas, such things still remained a dream for many. Especially him. But while he couldn’t go back in time to spare her all that trauma, pain, heart ache and torture, he knew he could only ensure that in the present and into the future, such things would never be repeated, as long as the jika as a species, lived. He would treat her with all the love, loyalty and devotion she deserved, for the rest of his life. 

He did feel, however, that if anything ever happened to her, not only would he be devastated beyond repair, but the entire hive, the entire royal family would be too. It would feel like a bomb was detonated over the hive mind itself. They would be lost without her, and honestly, he did not want to live in a world, in any sense or reality without her presence in it.

But she did look peaceful in her rest in the incubation cell.

The last time she had gotten this much consecutive rest, she had overworked her body to the point of complete and utter exhaustion when Super Queen Kat first conquered this hive. Super Queen Kat, upon exiting her own re-incubation to fully develop, because the process had been rushed the first time, including everything that the super speed incubation had missed. 

Super Queen Kat, however, realized just how much harm Hazi, her Dowager Hive Mistress and her true sisters had endured, and Kat had apologized to Hazi and her true sisters several times over since. And this was the only way Kat and the rest of the royal batches, super or otherwise- had to try to make up for it. To help Hazi to become more whole herself, to try to reverse the previous injuries. 

“How is she doing?” Kat asked as she slipped into the Royal Nursery Comb, alone. Wanting and needing a break from her harem of consorts to focus solely and singularly on Hazi. 

“Still in stasis, only 3.1467% more processed than she was this morning. But, just looking at how she’s healed on the outside is manifest, whether or not she’ll heal internally or especially mentally and emotionally? Psychologically? No clue.” Klip answered, saying ‘no clue’ with a snarling venomous hiss as he stopped pacing and checked over the control panel again, trying to use the adage ‘a watched pot never boils’ to see if it worked. But to see where Hazi was in the overall process, only three quarters of way through. He had thought the first three days had been moving slow, this rate of progress was practically mocking him and everyone else.

“Well, Reverend Mother, did point out to me that because Hazi was and is older, and older bodies heal slower than younger ones. It’s practically a universal law of nature.” She supplied as she looked it over herself before she added a few more processed and procedures and protocols she had been given from the farther hives that were in the surrounding solar systems and galaxies, that hadn’t been tried because they hadn’t been known in this part of the universe, let alone, this galaxy and this solar system. And upon the entrance of the code, the protocol processor, that Hazi had specifically put in a set of perameters to read, examine and extrapolate all of the processes, especially the ones that may be added while she would be in the incubation cell and wouldn't be able to do herself. The system paused, for just a few seconds that felt like it's own small eternity as both Klip and Kat held their breath and prayed that it woudn't get stuck, and just put this protocol where it would need to go. Thankfully, the system came back and actually put this protocol in as the very next one it would implement.

“What did you just do?” Klip asked. 

“I gave her some rejuvenating protocols I got from quadrant 87 in the Bessemer Quadrant in the Qusark Galaxy. So that she will hopefully process faster if she gets to de-age and regain all or at least most of her youthful vigor. Plus, it should help and serve her that when she exits, physically, she’ll be as young as us, at least in body and form. But her mind will still retain all of her memories and her wisdom and personality thanks to the protocols and procedures that needed to be paired with the rejuvenating procedure and protocol, otherwise, she will literally regress to what she originally was at conception and birth, had she finished the programming stage as a princess before she would be a queen in stasis.” Kat explained. 

“You don’t think that’s too risky to even try? What if the other protocols and procedures don’t work and aren’t effective enough with the rejuvenation? What if she really does regress back? What will we do? How are we supposed to…?!” Klip started to spiral before Kat put her hands on his face, holding him still and make sure he was looking into her own eyes. 

“This exact protocol and procedure was repeated with those results 247 times in that area of space with the 123 hives who implemented it. It’s been tried, tested and already proved true and perfectly effective. I would never try anything less than what is absolutely certain and at the very least, tried and true with repeatable and fully replicated results. The procedures and protocols will work, they will help. I promise, or at least, I am hopeful, and you should be too, it's been my most Hazi thing I've done so far.” Kat reassured him, using her best ‘Hazi tone’. The tone that Hazi always used when she was reassuring while explaining things to others as that helped Klip calm back down. 

“Plus, she shortened her own lifespan to make my reign a complete success. Not to mention the injuries and trauma Queen Kai inflicted on her. The least I can do is try to heal the hurt and injuries, while also extending her life for as long as possible, so that not only will that deficit be corrected, but reversed so that she’ll actually live much longer.” Kat murmured. 

“Hopefully.” Klip allowed. 

“Hopefully.” Kat nodded in agreement, knowing that was as far as she would get with him right now. 

“I’m not doing all of this just because she’s the Dowager Hive Mistress, which will also help her with her duties as such. But because she’s been my first real friend, and I love her like a sister, because for all intents and purposes, she practically is my big sister, always looking out for me, and I want the best for her, the same way she wants the best for me and everyone else, especially for you. She’s sacrificed so much for this hive, for it to remain at peace, both for my predecessor and for me, for us. It’s time those sacrifices pay off and what she’s given, is returned to her, at least a hundred fold. I’m supposed to be a full fledged adult queen, but I still need her and I especially want her guidance, friendship and support and comfort. All of my own intelligence has been programmed into me. But she’s had experience- who was a much better teacher than any other, even when it came at great personal cost to her.” Kat murmured quietly as she withdrew her hands from his face before she sat down on the seat in front of the cell itself as she continued to comb over the various processes and protocols that were sent and communicated to her from all over the universe. Just to make sure nothing was missed. 

“She’s lucky to have you as a friend.” Klip offered before he sat down in a chair next to her as he fidgeted with his hands, staring at Hazi in that cell, resting, while also going through her own metamorphosis. 

“No, I’m the lucky one to have her as a friend. There is no one like her in all of the Jika. I know because I’ve looked. There’s only a handful of Dowager Hive Mistresses. And they’re nothing like her. Because they lack genuine care, kindness, gentleness, insight, discernment and most of all- that self sacrificing spirit. That’s what makes her the one of a kind she is. And I can’t imagine ever doing this without her. Because if an accident were to occur and we lose her?  We’ll all be lost. We would try to stay the course she has laid down but without her guidance, reading the path through the present to the future, and seeing all the curves and bends and obstacles in the way and steer us around them so that we pass without incident. Only she could ever do such a thing, and I feel like we would crash and break apart when and if we ever were to meet those obstacles. I feel like I need to have Kit’s face pattern put on her face, so that everyone would listen and obey any order she would give, or at the very least, make the queenly pattern that’s already there, even as faded as it’s been, fully restored.” She mused. 

“She specifically asked you not to do that, because she never wants anyone to be confused about who the real queen of the hive is, much less put the hive as a whole into chaos, just in case anyone would think she should be the rightful queen right now and in the future.” Klip reminded her. 

“I know. That’s why I’ll respect her wishes, because I respect her and her opinion and her own autonomy. And her wisdom, because she’s right, if I did restore the pattern, it would throw the hive into chaos. Which can’t and shouldn’t be allowed to happen. Even if I feel the hive would do so much better if it was under her rulership. She would have made the best queen the Jika could have ever seen.” Kat sighed.

“And yet being queen is the one thing she’s never wanted to be, either now or in the future.” Klip offered as the corner of his mouth quirked up in a lopsided grin. 

“Oh I know, it’s completely ironic. And here I am as a Super Queen and yet, there are days I don’t want to be. Where I don’t even want to leave my nest, because outside of it, comes all the decisions and the mental workload of maintaining the hive and the hive mind. And it’s a burden I still don’t feel strong enough to carry on my own.” Kat confessed, knowing Klilp would keep such truths in complete confidence. 

“That’s understandable.” Klip sympathized. 

“Thank you. I feel like if I say those words out loud to anyone but you or Hazi, I’ll be overthrown- myself.” Kat murmured quietly. 

“They would be welcome to try. But you do technically have a harem three times bigger than any other queen, super or otherwise. And the Hive Mind is locked into you and you alone for now, until your own princess would rightfully take over the hive from you. Plus, our military force is also at least three times bigger than any other hive as well, and each soldier is stronger, tougher, more educated, better trained than any other. I mean, just look at Jago, he has more spikes than me or any other super consort. And he has more types of venom than any other jika in the species do too. He’s practically a military specialist.” Klip offered. 

“And we’re all still practically scared shitless of him.” Kat muttered under her breath before Klip erupted in a small laugh as she snickered and then started to giggle. 

“You’re preachin’ to the choir on that one. But yet, even as terrifying he is, Hazi can still cut him down to size if he ever gets an ego bigger than it should be. She doesn’t even have to say anything, just a look can express volumes instantly. And at the same time I understand why Jago and the others are so protective of her. Because not only does she do so much, but she means and matters so much too.” Klip returned, in a soft murmur. 

“She does. Her value as not just a Dowager Hive Mistress, but her as a person especially.” Kat agreed before they simply sat in silence for a moment once Kat had gone through every protocol and procedure and upgrade there was and could now simply wait for the processes to finish on Hazi, because Hazi already had the best versions of these either done or in the cue.

“Thank you.” Kat murmured softly. 

“For what?” Klip asked. 

“For loving her, for taking care of her, for protecting her, for all the things you do for her, whether or not anyone else would ever learn or see or notice, but her. I’m so relieved that you and her are your own Isthantaries. And that she is so happy and content with just you, as you are happy and content with just her, as she is. You both protect each other, in so many ways, in every way. You treat each other as equals. Something that for us, is unheard of overall, but I see every day in all the consorts from Kai’s batch, how happy they are with their private Isthantaries too. And it makes me happy that they’re happy, fulfilled and content.” Kat answered. 

“Are you jealous or envious of that?” Klip asked thoughtfully. 

“Yes and no. I’m relieved that I don’t have to go through the process of finding my Isthantaries, they come to me. And Kit Prime might as well be my own mostly private Isthantari. But I’m sometimes envious of the simplicity of the others. But then I remind myself of what Hazi has told me and reminded me many times. That ‘no one can be me, but me. Because if I try to be someone else, who would be me? What hole in the natural order of things would my absence be?’ But at the same time, if we lose her, it wouldn’t be just a hole in the natural order, it would be a black hole none of us would ever escape from.” She answered softly, so that only Klip would hear her. 

“I couldn’t agree more.” He offered before there was a jump in the processing which made them both jump, their bodies moving reflexively and gasp and focus on the control panel, thanks to that rejuvenation procedure and protocol, 3% quickly became 30% of the total that was left on the sequence, because it made the process more like handing stacks of paper instead of a single page at a time as suddenly, not only did she reach the rate of the others in her sister group, it outpaced them, it was now moving at the rate that Klip had moved at before it jumped again, now it was moving at a rate that was halfway between the rate Kat moved at and what Klip had moved at, which considering she wasn't a Super, was practically miraculous, as it was now practically moving volumes at a time over the neural bridge because now it had the foundation to build a bridge large enough and wide enough to do so, because apparently, those rejuvination protocols had affected the cell and the system itself too as it was already uploading them to every cell's system within the Royal Comb.  

“Oh thank the primordial pool.” Klip sighed in relief. Now, instead of the process just taking it’s dear sweet time, now they had a timer, for when she would be done, the very next morning, only an hour past the usual time most woke up and ate breakfast and went about their duties for the day. 

“Finally!” Kat nearly sobbed, if she could cry with these compound eyes as she slipped from the seat to the floor to kneel on the floor and clutch at her own chest, feeling like she could finally fully breathe again. Like the weight of a planet was just lifted off her chest and shoulders. 

“She’s going to be ok! She’s going to be back with us in just a matter of hours!” She beamed in relief before she used the Hive Mind to inform the entire Royal Family who practically swarmed the Royal Nursery Comb to see for themselves as they all cheered and were overjoyed to see it themselves. Finally, the most important piece of this puzzle was about to be put back in and make the entire Royal Family complete once more.

Tabi - Currently in @sonic-oc-showdown 2!

The leader of this motley crew of ragamuffins, Tabi is a fearsome little critter who's brain is just as terrifying as their brawn. Though most of their deeds are more legend than fact, their ability to keep those under their watch safe out of the hands of those who may want to exploit the abilities of their species [or worse, used to recharge and power devices with the chaos energy they're made out of] is second to none. Originally a healer to a group of mercenaries who got dumped in a forest after a terrible injury, their views on Mobians are dim at best, to outright despising them on their worst days. Still, they refuse to confront them directly, instead robbing them blind and using said resources to keep their actions hidden as much as possible from prying eyes, keeping anything they find "interesting" to themselves. Also after another incident, they have a bit of a complex when it comes to "helping" other species they come across by bullying them until they lash out, mostly to make sure they're tough enough to survive if something bigger attacks them. They'll also swear up and down they're in the right about it, which has caused some...issues. Serious, driven, is just ...so very, very tired.

Trackball

When the village they were raised in was evacuated, and everyone except the old, infirm, and "pets" were left behind in order to slow down an advancing army, Trackball refused to back down when Tabi came to scavenge what they could find for themselves. After a battle that lasted until sunup, they ended up gaining Tabi's respect, friendship, and services in protecting those who were left. After the last of the Mobians who lived in said village passed away peacefully, Trackball pledged the rest of their life to Tabi's service, and to follow them wherever they, or "the demon in their employ" would go. Granted, this action and Trackball's wording slightly weirded Tabi out a bit, but as the Night Terrors grew, Trackball eventually became second in command, and the defacto leader if Tabi isn't around. Always the first one awake, they're usually found double checking heist plans, arranging scouting and salvage teams, and making sure things run like clockwork behind the scenes. Quick thinking, dependable, Is far more adept than what they think they are.

Shortfuse

As the environment was collapsing around them, some factions tried to replicate species that were dying out, to...mixed results.

Shortfuse here is one of those said artificial lifeforms, and the only one out of all in the project that made them that ended up anything close to stable. Alas, the rest of their fellow A-Life constructs proceeded to go feral and tear apart the scientists that made them, so that left Shortfuse alone. All who loved and wanted them, dead. Cast to the Wilds with no defense, or support. You know, besides the warp powers. And the immunity to any and all toxins and poisons. And the sheer amount of explosive devices they could just summon at a moment's notice. Honestly, most of the Night Terrors don't even remember when Shortfuse showed up. When other members pointed that fact out, Tabi just said they are a chao, they think Shortfuse is cool enough to stay and if anyone had an issue with it, they could take it up with them, and that stopped most questions. Shortfuse generally has their trademark smile plastered on their face, and aside for a few giggles with different tones, is pretty much mute, which, crossed with their generally silent movement can badly startle those unused to that. It's also sometimes hard to tell if they're paying attention, and the fact they can use their stomach as extra storage space has left some a bit disquieted at their actions. Still, they're an integral part of the heads of this gang, if not with their explosives expertise, then with their ability to quickly write down and organize records, and making medicines and helpful compounds by breaking down what components something is made out of by....licking it. Ok, so they're a little off. And they're well aware of this. But the Night Terrors, despite their eccentricities, accept Shortfuse as their own, construct or not, and are more than willing to be patient with them. And that's something Shortfuse will absolutely fight for, no matter what.

Eccentric, a lover of the arts, a bit of a sad clown some days.

Rime

Driven by rumors of a treasure guarded by a fearsome monster that lived deep within the aqueducts of a fallen city, when the Night Terrors went to check out these claims, Rime was the only living thing there. Mutated to twice the size of a regular chao, with a cast iron stomach, keen sense of smell, Rime was also more adept to living in more aquatic climates, fresh water be damned. With the rest of their pack not evolving fast enough to survive said toxins, the joy of finding others of their own species was enough to follow the rest of the Night Terrors anywhere, really. Though they may play up their size and ferocity, and they'll keep quiet to seem like a brick wall both physically and mentally, Rime's a tenderhearted creature who gets lonely easily, and can get a bit awkward when they want to interact with others, easily getting flustered and getting self conscious about being a big fish in such a small pond for so long. They're in charge of training regiments, aquatic scout work and underwater salvage. They're also super picky when it comes to food, and uses their sense of smell to help prevent spoilage from overtaking food storages, and knowing the best time to covert fruits into seeds. Stoic, hardworking, really just wants a hug most days.

Slight -

Currently applied to @chao-race-tournament !

Forced to flee for their life after their more aristocratic family fell out of favor with those more in charge, Slight was basically left to fend for themselves on the street with only their security blanket. Still, their drive to survive, and their ability to talk themselves out of [or into] most situations, Slight managed to rule the streets of the city their owners used to run until one too many lies caught up to them and Tabi decided to see exactly who'd been saying they beat them in a fight. Still, Tabi couldn't help but be intrigued by this upstart who had the sheer audacity, and after securing Slight's territory firmly under their rule, allowed them to stick around, allowing them to work their way up into the organization. Currently, they're team treasurer and keeper of all the warehouse keys. That being said, they aren't the most moral chao, and don't quite have the same qualms the others may have with selling, say, chao eggs they "found." Wicked cultured, mildly neurotic, will sell you for one corn chip.

Zori - Previously in @sonic-oc-showdown, out in round 3!

Zori is the most....unique, of the Night Terrors, and possibly the second oldest member of it all. They don't really deal much with the day to day minutia of running a crime syndicate, generally preferring to patrol any gardens under the groups protection, testing out defense systems, or digging up neat ore or rocks Tabi might like. More of a mascot, despite their attempts to seem more ferocious, they also take care and do upkeep of any bases the Night Terrors are operating from unless their expertise in umbrakinesis or electromagnetic manipulation is needed. Deeply curious, loyal to a fault, great with younger team members.

Jika