“I need you to convince your people to take up arms against Varnae. We can't afford to have people sitting on the sidelines for this one." you declared.

The Kaiju King’s hand abruptly stopped in the middle of rubbing his illustrious beard.

“Our army should be returning shortly. They were out responding to an invasive species breaching our boundaries.” he explained.

“Actually, yer highness…” Aegis spoke up, his considerable weight shifting slightly. “The army’s return got delayed by another Brood outbreak. It, uh…wasn’t pretty to say the least.”

All at once, everyone in the room other than you shivered slightly. You stared around in confusion.

“Ugh! You’ve got Brood here too?” Ben asked.

“Unfortunately. They’re a real menace.” James answered, his head still somewhat lowered in deference to the Kaiju King. “My father thinks they’re ‘beautiful creatures’, though.”

“He isn’t entirely wrong.” Ana added, glancing between Ben and James.

Everyone turned to stare at Ana, you and Ben included. Except, you were the only one not looking at her like she’d grown a second head. Ana, not noticing this, went on to elaborate.

“I looked into them during my time away. They breed and consume any resource. They can impregnate any organic creature with their parasitic embryo, and the embryo converts the host’s body into a desirable Brood body. This offspring will also inherit metahuman abilities from their hosts.” she said, taking a moment to glance around, and perhaps just now realizing that she was losing her crowd. “They might be murderous pests, but there is no denying that their biology is beautiful.”

“I can deny that easily.” Mekara mentioned.

“Very easily.” Slizzik chimed in.

“They taste terrible! But Scragg does not hate them.” Scragg added.

Mekara narrowed her metal eyelids and peeled her shiny red lips back in a disgusted sneer.

Ben narrowed his eyes slightly.

“How can you say that? After what they did.” he said, his voice sounding contemptuous.

“Do not mistake my words. I neither like them nor approve of what they do. I am simply acknowledging that they are a well engineered species.” she explained.

“Well, stop it. They’re alien death machines. They shouldn’t be admired by anyone.”

There was real heat in those words. He was getting seriously worked up. You, on the other hand, knew very little of these things. You thought you remembered Ben telling you something about giant bugs, but the details were hazy.

Ana’s eyes searched his face, and she smoothly slipped a hand behind Ben’s head.

“Forgive me. That was thoughtless of me to say.”

(Cont.)