Chapter Text
Astotheles rocketed forward, paying no heed to the icicle set to collide with him head-on. It was going to hurt, but he had no choice. The ice struck him square in the middle of his thorax before shattering into a thousand glittering fragments. Preternatural chill quickly seeped through his midsection before spreading into his abdomen and limbs.
Before it consumed him, Astotheles closed the distance. Surprise flashed across the pale blue moth’s face, followed by desperation to come up with another plan. It was already too late. Astotheles lashed out first with his needle, then with his leg, delivering a one-two strike to his foe’s thorax and head. The moth crumpled to the ground.
Once he was certain of his victory, his strength gave out. Astotheles trembled, then fell to a knee, holding himself up with his needle. He’d won, if only barely. The three explorers laid in the dirt before him - unconscious, but not dead. One of his men rushed over to help him to his feet, but Astotheles brushed him off with only a glare. He pointedly barked, “See that they’re put back in their cell - securely this time.”
While he slowly pushed himself back to his feet, the other bug gradually backed away and rejoined with a few of the others. They lifted the bugs up to drag away, offering ashamed murmurs of, “On it,” and, “It won’t happen again.”
Once they’d started moving the trio, another bandit asked, “Say, boss, if the wasps aren’t going to pay, what good are these three anyway?”
It was a good question, and one that Astotheles didn’t have a precise answer for yet. After all the trouble he’d gone through to lure them here, it seemed like a waste to let them go now. More importantly, they’d caused his bandits plenty of trouble and knew the location of their hideout. It couldn’t be risked.
Astotheles looked past the crowd to where the long tunnel converged into a speck of light. The outside. Freedom from this life of scurrying around tunnels and living off scraps. There would be a way for them at the end of this, but not if he got cold feet now.
“The king is free to change his mind,” Astotheles said, “Though I’ll be sure to let him know that the price is going up if he wants to play games.” He paused to watch Team Snakemouth being dragged away, where he caught sight of the last green from Kabbu’s shell disappearing around the corner. “But even if he doesn’t, if these three interested him so much, I’m sure someone else will pay for them too.”
Once the explorers were gone, Astotheles properly noticed the remainder of the bandits that had gathered to watch his square-off with the explorers. He dismissed them with a wave. “The show’s over, everyone. Get back to what you were doing, and be on the lookout for any unwanted visitors.”
After so long with his leadership steering them true, the other bugs weren’t ones to question his decisions. They offered a round of quick acknowledgments before setting to their work, leaving him to lick his wounds and figure out their next move.
In the dead of night, clashing echoed through the hideout’s tunnels. The wasps had waited for the cover of darkness before making their attack. In hindsight, Astotheles should have seen it coming when the king never responded to his offer to still hand over the explorers: He hadn’t given up on his desires - only on the trade. Instead, Astotheles had held out hope for too long, and now he was here, facing down their ruler while his ragtag group struggled to hold the line against the better-armed soldiers.
He and the king circled one another, each searching for their moment to strike. The latter taunted Astotheles, snarkily remarking, “You’re less pathetic than I expected from someone so eager to sell out other bugs,” before bringing his heavy axe down. With a timely hop, Astotheles narrowly made clearance from the edge before it cleaved through his remaining arm. The blade smashed into the ground with such force that it kicked up dirt and chipped stone. For someone this petulant, the king was far tougher than Astotheles would have guessed, but he didn’t dare to say it out loud. He needed to save every bit of breath he had for himself.
The fight with the explorers had pushed him to his limit. This was pushing him further. In the brief moment of recovery, past his foe, he saw Din clashing with one of the soldiers. The wasp backed away from an attack, then thrust his spear forward. The bandit crumpled to the ground.
Despair washed through Astotheles. He should give up. Anger quickly displaced it, pushing him to lash out now and visit retribution on the wasps. Discipline grounded him where he stood. He would wait for his chance to strike and end this. Everything but this duel had to wait.
The king was both mighty and swift, but not as swift as him. If the right opportunity wouldn’t present itself, he’d have to make one. He hit the king where he was weakest: His ego. “If you’re so sure of your own greatness, then why haven’t you been able to strike me down?”
Even that gentle prodding proved more than enough to stoke the king’s fury. He yelled, “You insolent runt!” before taking another heavy swing. This time, Astotheles anticipated it and feinted to his left. Once Hoaxe committed to his attack, Astotheles changed directions, quickly circling around to the right. He thrust his needle out and up, certain of exactly where it would land: Right in the center of the king’s face.
But he’d miscalculated: Hoaxe was neither as slow nor as stupid as he’d thought. The king reacted by pulling his weapon back up to shield his face, making it just in time to deflect the tip of the needle off the axe’s head. The harsh sound of metal scraping on metal filled the space between them while the contact scattered sparks that briefly flashed in the dark.
Hoaxe staggered back, then touched a hand to his face, where Astotheles had visibly scratched his exoskeleton. Now properly enraged, he glowered at Astotheles. “I shouldn’t have wasted my time with ingrates like you, but don’t worry: I’ll make sure you get to savor every moment of your failure.”
Astotheles had long believed himself ready for anything, but he was utterly unprepared for what came next. Hoaxe raised a hand, and with a flick and a snap, flames engulfed Astotheles. The only things he had time to feel were panic, searing pain, and then nothing, as the brawl receded into darkness. The other would have to finish the fight without him.
Astotheles curled up in the corner of his cell. The wasps had taken everything off him, his cloak included. The only thing left was his final scraps of dignity, and even those were at risk the more the other prisoners looked at him, gawking at his stump of an arm and talking amongst themselves.
He avoided eye contact with any of them, most of all the explorers who had been his own prisoner not too long ago. The wasps had placed them just one cell over, likely to get under his exoskeleton even further. Or, to be more precise, there were two of them. He hadn’t seen the moth since he’d woken up. Unsurprisingly, the bee and beetle didn’t have a thought to spare for him, instead whispering to one another whenever the guards weren’t watching.
Hindsight revealed all of his mistakes: Staying to fight instead of evacuating when the wasps attacked, waiting for Hoaxe to respond after he tried to take the explorers the first time, and - most of all - cutting a deal with him in the first place. Not that it was much of a benefit to him in his current situation, and even less so to all the members of his family in the desert. He didn’t know how many of them had survived, just that he’d been separated from them here. It was doubtlessly another facet of the torment the king planned for him.
Clanking on the adjacent cell’s bars interrupted his careful inspection of the dirt floor. It was the green beetle, trying to get his attention. “Hey,” the beetle said, “Astotheles, right?” Astotheles didn’t give a verbal answer, but his attention was confirmation enough. “Are you alright? You’ve not said a word since you woke up!”
Concern was the last thing he’d been expecting to hear. For better or worse, the bee supplied him with something that more closely matched his expectations. “Why should we care, Kabbu?! This is all his stupid fault anyway! Let him rot here!”
Astotheles repeated her last words in his head before pushing himself upright. Trying his hardest not to sound too bewildered, he asked, “Wait. You’re going to try breaking out again? Here?”
Kabbu deferred a reply in favor of placating his teammate. “Vi, please,” he pleaded in a hushed voice, “whatever happened before, we’re all in the same situation now. We’ll need all the help we can get!” She crossed her arms and looked away with a pout, but allowed the beetle to indulge himself. Kabbu turned back to Astotheles and leaned forward until he was right up against the bars on his cell. “If nobody stops the king from reaching the everlasting sapling, then who knows if anyone will be able to stop him from taking over Bugaria? None of us can do it alone, so… please be honest: If we got you out of that cell, would you join us against him?”
It didn’t add up. They’d already lost to him once, even with their sorcerer, and he’d failed utterly against the king. What hope did they have? Besides, wouldn’t it only pile on to his shame to switch sides now? Even with common enemies, they were still Elizant’s lackeys. “Tch,” he scoffed, turning his head away, “don’t you have a third of your own?”
No response. Astotheles turned back to see the worry on Kabbu’s face deepening by the second. Vi’s pout had been replaced by a melancholic stare across the room. Astotheles made eye contact with Kabbu, and before long the sheer force of his stare wrung out an answer. The beetle confessed, “He - the king came and took him away before you woke up. We haven’t seen him since.”
Grim silence fell over the group. Within the suffocating walls of the prison, it was all too easy to wallow in. Astotheles found some comfort in it. After countless moons of fighting fruitlessly, now he might finally be free from the endless struggle.
The explorers didn’t share his view. Before long, Kabbu was the one to break it to repeat his offer. “Even if we’re doomed to fail, we have to try and find him! What sort of friends would we be if we didn’t?”
That needed no answering - this was somewhere they saw eye-to-eye. And what sort of leader was Astotheles? One that had failed to accomplish anything he’d set out to do. One that had led his loyal followers into ruin. One that was unworthy of their devotion.
Astotheles could die, but first he had to repay his debt to them: To search them out and free them.
And if he failed at that, too? Then it was up to him to seek vengeance, even if all he could manage before he fell was to put another scratch on the smug king’s face. Astotheles pushed himself to his feet and walked to the shared wall between their cells and looked down at the explorers. The mere thought of trusting the witch’s servants made him sick, but if this was his punishment for his sins, then so be it.
“Fine,” he said, “I’m in.”