Chapter Text
“Word got around that the famous Bee Mountain has completely changed itself under Gummy Bear’s rule. Stay tuned for an exclusive interview by Builderman!”
After a series of commercials, the cameras cut to Builderman and Gummy Bear sitting in cushioned chairs on a stage. Teal and magenta spotlights circled around Gummy Bear. The audience applauded as upbeat music blared throughout the venue.
“Thanks for having me on the show,” Gummy Bear said.
“Not a problem! Glad to have you here as well,” Builderman exclaimed. “So tell us, Gummy Bear, what led to Bee Mountain’s sudden transformation? It turned to goo in the blink of an eye. Hah!”
“Ah, you mean my GUMMY EMPIRE?” Gummy Bear exclaimed, standing up proudly. The audience exploded with applause and cheers.
After the audience settled down, Gummy Bear sat back down in his chair and continued. “Well, Builderman, I couldn’t do it without my spectac-GOO-lar supporters: the gummy soldiers! With the combined power of thousands of beekeepers, we have harnessed the power of my GUMMY CANNON to make the mountain sweeter than honey! So, yesterday, after years of preparation, we FIRED THE GUMMY CANNONS until that mountain was PINK and TEAL!”
The audience cheered once again.
“Is it true that no pollen is left on Bee Mountain— ah, pardon— the Gummy Empire?” Builderman asked.
“It’s true! True as GOO!” The audience seemed to love Gummy Bear’s unnecessary placement of the word “goo” in passionate statements. “Goo is the future of honey making! We can SAVE THE ECONOMY. Pollen doesn’t even make half the amount of honey our new and improved goo makes. Even converting pollen at the hive is a thing of the past! HAH! That Onett guy must have really hated his beekeepers— making them do such tedious work for… such minimal payoff! My GOO-dness!”
There were shouts of negativity against Onett in the crowd.
“Wow! It seems Onett’s reputation has fallen off quite a bit. Would you give us an update about him?”
“Well, Builderman, what hasn’t he done?” Gummy Bear questioned rhetorically. “I’ll let my audience answer that one!”
There was a loud uproar from the crowd. Derogatory comments and chants echoed throughout the auditorium.
“Since I’m such a GOO-d person, I’ll summarize it for ya,” Gummy Bear said, the audience simmering down. “First off, this guy didn’t care at all for the beekeepers. Updates once a year? What kind of leader is he!? Not to mention, those MONSTROUS BUGS have attacked our beekeepers for far too long, and he had done nothing to stop them! Spiders, beetles, werewolves, ants— those damn pests won’t be a problem anymore in my GUMMY EMPIRE! And those EVIL BEARS that encouraged the beekeepers to do the tedious labor of collecting pollen— GOO-d lord, they make me embarrassed to be a bear!”
A new chant of “GUMMY BEAR, NO OTHER BEAR!” took form in the enthusiastic crowd.
Gummy Bear laid back in his seat, elbows on the armrests, with a wide grin plastered on his gooey face.
—
One day had passed since the Gummy Invasion. The 30 bee zone was closed off from the beekeepers, being the only area not covered by goo. In the 30 bee zone, 45 “bees” had spent the past 24 hours as robloxians. They felt more conscious and free in their new forms, yet more trapped than they had ever been. It was hard to believe any of this was real.
Basic woke up from her slumber. It only lasted four hours, but she was still adjusting to the robloxian body. And it seemed like she wasn’t the only one who didn’t get the recommended 8 hours. Most of the others struggled to get any sleep at all as robloxians. Or maybe the floor was just uncomfortable.
Ironically, Exhausted, who was known for never resting as a bee, had gotten the most sleep: 14 hours, and she had yet to wake up.
Riley and Bucko were already awake and full of energy, arguing over red and blue… as always.
“Is now really the time to fight over hive color nonsense?” Commander interrupted sternly. “We’ve got a much bigger problem at hand.”
“They’re not gonna listen,” Basic muttered to herself.
While Riley and Bucko bickered, one baby started crying, and a second baby started crying because the other was crying.
“You made Baby Bee and Tadpole cry!” Fuzzy exclaimed, knowing neither of the two heard him. He made his way over to the two crying babies.
Unlike the other Robloxians, Baby Bee and Tadople took the form of pill babies (the other exceptions being Puppy and Tabby, who were turned into morphs of their respective animals). Lion and Bear, however, were still turned into robloxians because there was no lion or bear morph. Digital was also a robloxian, but it functioned more as a robot than as a humanoid.
Fuzzy cradled Baby Bee and Tadpole in his arms and rocked them back and forth. Music hummed a tune that calmed down Baby Bee, but not Tadpole.
Meanwhile, Riley and Bucko’s fight grew physical. They threw punches at each other. Spicy and Fire summoned flames to assist Riley. Vicious attacked the reds with spikes. Crimson, Cobalt, and Commander tried to get the violence to end, but the fight had already amassed a small audience. Cool, Ninja, and Buoyant cheered for the blue side. Every red except for Shy shouted chants for the red side. Even Tadople hopped out of Fuzzy’s arms, stopped crying, and started cheering for Bucko.
Some colorless bees joined the audience and picked sides to root for. Puppy and Tabby chased each other in circles around the fight. Shocked tried to scream louder than the fight. And that only made the audience’s chants louder. Some audience members even joined in the fight: Ninja, Bubble, Stubborn, Photon for blue, and Rage, Rad, Spicy, Bomber, and Demo for red.
It was at this point that Onett woke up. What he saw in the center of the 30 bees zone could only be described as sheer chaos. A mixture of fire, bubbles, spikes, and explosions covered his view of the bees that were actually partaking in the fight. It looked almost cartoonish. Onett didn’t know whether to laugh or put an end to the chaos.
“ONETT’S AWAKE!” Windy announced, summoning a strong gust of wind straight into the middle of the fight.
The robloxians toppled down, and the fighting ceased. Crimson and Cobalt held back Riley and Bucko to keep them from throwing hands. Windy had taken no part in the fight, nor did she encourage it, but she found it quite amusing how simple it was to separate Riley and Bucko. Some robloxians whispered to one another, and many cleared a path for Onett.
Onett parachuted down from his sleeping spot next to Bubble Bee Man. He made his way to his usual spot beside the lid. “I’m gonna need you all to calm down for a second and listen.” He waited a few seconds for the chatter to quiet down and then continued. “I need to set some ground rules. First of all, we will remain inside this zone until further notice.”
Vicious let out a loud sigh. She liked attacking beekeepers who trespassed onto her least favorite fields at night.
“Next, I want to make sure the living conditions here are suitable for all 46 of us. I have thousands of blueberries, strawberries, sunflower seeds, and pineapples in my inventory. Since you are robloxians now, you will experience hunger differently than how bees experience it. It is recommended that you eat three times a day. Follow me to the food stash.”
Onett led everyone to the Ant Pass and Robo Pass dispensers. The bright green cog behind them was used as a shelf to organize the food types. The Ant Pass and Robo Pass dispensers were filled to the brim with unsorted foods and treats.
“Please, help yourself to some food.”
It was immediately clear that Onett didn’t think this through because more than half of the robloxians scrambled to grab food first. Basic stayed behind, not wanting to get involved amidst even more chaos. Digital, Shy, Looker, Fuzzy, and the babies stayed far back from the action too. Meanwhile, robloxians were being pushed and shoved in every direction.
Ninja and Hasty were the first to acquire their meals and take seats on the floor, as if they were having a picnic. That was the only option, as there were no tables in the 30 bee zone. Photon was the third to join their “table” after narrowly avoiding a spike from Vicious.
Basic’s thoughts drifted to the more negative side of reality, seeing all the wasted food from the fighting. Onett certainly had a ginormous stock of food, but Basic questioned to herself whether it was enough to sustain the health of everyone for an unknown amount of time. It could be years for all she knew.
“Onett?” Basic asked.
“Yeah?”
“What’s gonna happen when we run out of food?”
Onett sighed. “I, uh… don’t know. But I’ll do whatever I can to make sure we never run out. After all, we have at least a month worth of food. That’s gotta be enough time to sort everything out— GUYS, MAKE A LINE!” A stray laser from Precise hit him square in the face, and the robloxians formed a cluster that vaguely resembled a line. It was good enough.
Onett had sounded unsure. And Basic knew he was unsure. Everyone was unsure. The past 24 hours had been a blur of confusion and sudden change. Why did millions of beekeepers abandon their bees in an instant? Why were the millions of bees turned into one singular robloxian for each individual bee type? Nobody knew the answer. Not even Onett.
The robloxians gathered into groups and ate their meals. Fuzzy and Buoyant sat with the two babies and crushed up fruits to feed them. All the red bees except Shy and Cobalt sat in a tight circle and roasted their foods on a fire provided by Spicy. Burnt strawberries were apparently a big hit with the red bees.
Crimson, Cobalt, Commander, Brave, and Windy discussed potential plans in case they were ever let outside. Windy did most of the talking, a trait she probably absorbed from Spirit Bear’s influence. Basic stopped by to eavesdrop on the conversation. She too was curious.
Of course, Windy was still talking when Basic arrived. “…and I heard the commotion from outside. We cannot leave this zone, but we can observe by listening. Yes… listening to the sounds of the mountain, the bugs, the beekeepers. Gummy Bear has taken the role of the other bears by giving quests to the new beekeepers. If you listen closely, you will hear the quests he provides. Ahh, the quests… I remember those. But the bugs, those poor bugs, must be in so much pain. I cannot imagine how they can even move, eat, survive… that goo is taking away the life and the flowers. Oh how I miss the sunflowers already...”
“Sooo, where do we come in?” Brave asked impatiently. “We are leaving this zone, right?”
“Brave, let her finish speaking,” Crimson said.
So Windy continued. “Hmm… well, from my observations, it seems that the mountain is safe. No beekeepers have been harmed… at least, from what I’ve heard. Yes… all I can do is listen. I cannot see until, well, we leave this area. Perhaps we could leave tonight when Onett is fast asleep.”
“And you’re 100 percent sure we’ll be safe?” Brave asked.
“There seem to be no signs of violence at the time being, so I would say yes. I am 100 percent sure, yes. Hmm… ahh, I am quite tired. Looker and I spent all night listening to the mountain. Some sleep tonight would be nice— ah, sorry, I started rambling again. As for the current topic at hand, hmm… we should have a goal in mind when we leave this zone.”
“Isn’t the goal just to, you know, see the mountain?” Brave asked. “To observe?”
“Yes, but I’d like answers to all the questions I have,” said Cobalt. “Here, I’ll give ya one: what happened to the bears? If Gummy Bear replaced them, where did they all go?”
Windy spoke after a few seconds of silence. “I heard nothing from the bears.”
Basic's heart dropped upon hearing that.
“Then that’ll be our goal,” Cobalt said. “We’ll find out what happened to the bears.”
After that, Windy started rambling about the bugs and the flowers. Ninja stole one of Windy’s uneaten sunflower seeds without her noticing. Basic figured she had enough of awkwardly standing outside the group, and she walked away. She passed by Music, who hummed a tune for her audience of Shy, Ninja, and Lion, later referring to it as the “legendary bee lullaby.” Honey Bee and Diamond were bragging about their honey wealth to each other.
Basic finally took a seat by Digital, who sat alone. Her meal consisted of pineapples and one sunflower seed. There was something about Digital that intrigued her.
“Hi,” she said.
Digital turned its screen towards Basic and smiled to acknowledge her presence. It didn’t have any food because its robot body functioned in a different way than the other robloxians. Robots did not need food or water to survive.
“I noticed you were sitting alone,” Basic said. “Do you want my company?”
Digital nodded.
“I’m not exactly close with any of the others, and I guess you aren’t either,” Basic explained. “It’s kinda crazy how the cheapest bee and the most expensive bee are sitting together apart from the others. Don’t you think?”
Digital looked around the room, the same smile displaying on its screen. It shrugged.
“Yeah, now that I think of it, that’s probably a weird thing for me to say as a first impression. I really do look up to you. Your abilities are neat.”
Silence.
“It’s really cool how you guys still have the abilities you had as bees. I wasn’t aware until I saw that fight.”
More silence.
“That was a crazy fight, huh?”
Digital nodded.
Basic ended the conversation with a simple “Yeah.”
Basic and Digital sat in silence, followed by the occasional sounds of Basic chewing her pineapples. Basic was a simple fellow. Digital was complex. Yet they both took comfort from the silence that followed their short interaction.
—
“So, Gummy Bear, the audience is just dying to know,” Builderman continued in the interview, “why only Gummy Bee? Bee Mountain was known for its diversity in bee types— 46 different species, if I recall correctly! And now there’s only one. What happened to the other 45?”
Before Gummy Bear could speak, chants of “ONLY GUMMY BEE!” broke out in the audience.
“Well, looks like the audience certainly approves of your decision!” Builderman remarked.
“Oh, of course they do! My gummy soldiers only know the best solutions to optimize honey making. MAKE SOME NOISE, MONEY MAKERS!!!”
The audience cheered loudly, and the cameras cut to several passionate robloxians in the crowd who even stood up.
“Who needs those other bees when the only purpose they served was, OH, I DUNNO… LITERALLY NOTHING! They were useless. Weak! Terrible honey makers. Need I go on? HAH!”
“Well, I’ll tell ya, Gummy Bear,” Builderman said, “your supporters truly are passionate. I had my fair share of doubts about the Gummy Empire, heh. But it looks like you know what the beekeepers want. And that’s the recipe for a remarkable ruler. A start of a new era, even.”
“A sweet recipe, might I add!” Gummy Bear said with a wink. “At the start of a GOO era!”
The viewer switched channels on his TV and chugged a gallon of star jelly. He needed to take his mind off of this bullshit. He didn’t have the energy to deal with any of it.
—
Everyone sat in a circle around the lid, Onett in the center. His lessons about living as a robloxian continued. He discussed the topic of hydration, demonstrating how to obtain water from coconuts, as they were the only source of water in the 30 bee zone.
“Why must a basic robloxian function for survival be so tedious?” Vector asked, struggling to open a coconut.
“Actually, water can be very accessible for many robloxians,” Onett said. “There are water sources on the mountain that the bears and I have lived off of, but we can’t leave this zone until I am certain the conditions are safe.”
Basic wanted to ask what would happen once Onett’s coconut supply ran out, but she knew from her last question that Onett had no apparent plan in mind. Gummy Bear’s takeover of Bee Mountain (including the bees’ instant transformation into robloxians) was so sudden that nobody saw it coming. Up until 24 hours ago, the “Gummy takeover” had been nothing but a conspiracy theory.
No theory, however, could have predicted the fact that every bee except Gummy Bee would turn into a robloxian after the beekeepers— no, the gummy soldiers— abandoned the rest of their bees. It broke all the logic of the game.
Basic chugged water from the coconut. She felt an improvement in her motor skills from learning to drink and eat with robloxian arms. Not all water from the fruit made it into her mouth, but she knew that she would have drank significantly less water if Onett had taught this lesson before the food one.
Some bees— most notably Stubborn, Lion, Bear, and Shocked— had a hard time drinking the water. Precise, on the other hand, drank every last drop of water from the coconut without a single milliliter wasted.
“Easy,” said Precise.
“HELL YEAH! That is the precision of a red bee,” Riley declared while simultaneously spilling half the water in his coconut.
Bucko laughed. “Yo, blues. See that? That dude’s a perfect example of what not to be.”
“Oh yeah?” Riley questioned. “Then I challenge you to a WATER DRINKING COMPETITION! I will be more hydrated than ALLLLL the blue bees combined.”
“I forgot to mention,” Onett chimed in, “too much water can kill you.”
Rage bee let out his iconic cry of rage and boosted Riley’s attack. Riley stood up, preparing to attack Bucko, but Crimson and Precise held him back. Vicious summoned a spike that pierced through Riley. Precise immediately let go of his injured teammate and shot laser pulses at Vicious. Vicious and Riley both ended up critically injured, with their HP bars in the red.
“God damn it, I was so close,” Vicious muttered to herself, barely audible to anyone except her teammates. “So close to finishing that motherfucker off.”
Basic heard it. Looker, who sat beside her, also heard it, based on his sudden change in posture.
Onett cleared his throat to gather the robloxians’ attention. “I guess I should make some rules about fighting, too. Two fights in one hour!?” He sighed. “Look, guys. We’re all trying to get through this and figure out how all of us can live suitably in this zone. But fighting isn’t gonna solve anything. Vicious and Riley, you almost died.”
The 30 bee zone was silent. All the whispering and gossiping came to a halt. Dying was never a problem for bees because it was essentially the same as sleep. Death did not apply to the bees on Bee Mountain. A few seconds of sleep could restore a bee’s energy, therefore restoring its life.
But they were not bees anymore. They were robloxians. And without a spawn point, robloxians die.
“You may have noticed the bars above your heads,” Onett explained. “Those bars display your health points, also known as HP. You have 100 HP total. Now, if you lose a bit of HP, it’s nothing to stress about. It replenishes over time.”
Basic took a look at the bars above Vicious and Riley’s heads, and sure enough, they were slowly and steadily going up. They took on a more orangish hue.
“Please don’t play with your lives like this, guys. You’re not bees. You’re not beekeepers either. All those beekeepers have spawn points at their hives in case they die on this mountain. You only have one life… except Tabby. She’s got nine. But my point still stands. Harming others physically is not allowed.”
“Correct,” Vector butted in unexpectedly. “Those who inflict harm onto others should be held accountable. There must be some sort of punishment for such despicable behavior.”
“Haha, nerd,” Rad whispered, provoking some laughter from the reds surrounding him.
As the robloxians finished hydrating, the zone grew darker. A series of crescent moons lit up, forming an obstacle course upwards.
“Some sort of punishment?” Onett repeated. “Hm… I don’t know. I’ll have to think of one. But it’s getting dark, and I want you all to get a proper amount of sleep— oh hey, Exhausted is finally awake!”
Exhausted lazily raised her arm to give a weak wave.
“HI, EXHAUSTED!” Buoyant greeted with the opposite amount of energy Exhausted had.
“Oh, the uh… living conditions,” Onett said, looking around the nearly empty zone. “We’ll have to sleep on the floor again. I’m used to it because I spent years sleeping that way. But I’m also aware that it is not the preferred way for robloxians to sleep. So until I find some comfortable sleeping options for you guys, you’ll uh… have to sleep on the floor. And I apologize for that.”
None of the robloxians had a response to Onett’s dialogue, as the floor was the only place they had experienced sleeping on— for those who even fell asleep that night.
“I could give you some tips for falling asleep,” Onett suggested.
There was a general consensus throughout the room that the new robloxians did, in fact, want to learn how the average robloxian could fall asleep.
Crimson, Cobalt, Commander, Brave, and Windy huddled close together, along with Looker. They had other plans overnight.
Vicious, too, had her gaze locked onto the exit of the 30 bee zone.