//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8: Sparks Fly 
// Story: The Bug In The Basement 
// by Skijarama 
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In the hours following Beebee’s molt, he had been only all too eager to experiment with his new body. He had started off by, yet again, climbing over Eventide, Fluttershy, and then the wall, happily giggling to himself as he explored. All the while, Fluttershy, and Eventide kept themselves out of his way, but in a position to catch him if his grip should fail. Eventually, after maybe six or seven minutes, he began to become short of breath, and he was starting to visibly shake from the effort. Luckily, his wings burst into life before he could fall, keeping him aloft in the air once he let go. He quickly descended back into Eventide’s waiting arms, a few tiny whimpers of pain slipping out of his throat once he was safely secured. Fluttershy deduced that flying like that had probably hurt, given the still very visible crease in his wing.

Once Beebee was curled up in Eventide’s arms though, he soon fell fast asleep. His tiny hooves were curled up into Eventide’s shirt, and his face was hidden against his chest. Eventide took this chance to really get a feel for Beebee’s new body, gently and lightly running his fingers back and forth over the carapace, careful to not wake him up. It was significantly harder than the white grub skin he had been crawling around in before, of that there could be no question. The chitin was cool and smooth, but had just the slightest bit of give if Eventide pressed his fingertips against it. It was strong and sturdy, but flexible.

Now, with the sun having set behind the horizon, Eventide gently set Beebee’s still sleeping form down on his bed next to his pillow, Fluttershy standing in the doorway to watch. There were several seconds of silence where they both just watched the sleeping bug, both of them wondering in their own ways what the future had in store for them and the little guy. Beebee’s hind legs gave a few little kicks, and a tiny murmur worked its way out of him before he curled up even tighter and rested his chin on the pillow next to him. Eventide chose that moment to give a tiny smile before standing up and quietly leaving the room. He headed back out into his living room, making sure to silently close the door behind him as he went. Fluttershy followed closely, a wide, almost goofy smile plastered on her face. “He’s so cute…”

Eventide nodded as he approached the chair, where Buddha was still resting. She saw him approaching and hopped off, knowing that he wanted the seat for himself. She walked a few feet to one side before sitting down and watching him crumple into the seat with a curious tilt of her head. Once he was seated, Eventide let out a long, relieved sigh. “Yeah… he’s adorable and full of holes,” he commented before tilting his head back and closing his eyes. “Ugh… just when I was getting used to him as he was, too…”

Fluttershy narrowed her eyes, detecting some frustration in his voice. She slowly stepped forward until she was right in front of him, where she then crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a stern frown. “Eventide, is something wrong?” she asked, making Eventide open one of his eyes.

He looked back at her for several moments before sighing and nodding. “Yeah, there is. Fluttershy, I have no idea what I’m doing, here. You’ve been helping me out, but I still feel like I’m just making it up as I go. It’s…” he sat forward to rest his elbows on his knees and bury his face in his hands. He took several deep breaths, calming down his frayed nerves, then sat up a bit more and looked back up into Fluttershy’s eyes. “It’s just stressful… and if I’m taking care of Beebee like this, I can’t afford to make mistakes or screw up. He’s a baby, and I can’t let him down.”

Fluttershy’s stern expression softened considerably at those words, and her arms fell from her chest to clasp together behind her back. With a more understanding look on her face, she shuffled forwards before crouching down next to the chair. She gave Eventide a wide, reassuring smile. “Don’t worry too much, Eventide. I know you won’t do anything to hurt him. You’re too gentle…”

Eventide snorted softly at that, a tiny smile appearing on his face. “Maybe I am gentle, but that doesn’t necessarily count as much here as it would with, say, a puppy,” he pointed out while gesturing at Buddha, who was watching the two curiously. She began to happily wag her tail upon being acknowledged while tilting her head to the other side.

Fluttershy nodded slowly in understanding. “I know… but I also know that you’re too scared of failing to do anything but your absolute best.”

Eventide stiffened, glancing up at her with a raised eyebrow. “Scared of failure…?” he muttered, watching her with scrutiny.

She immediately flinched back from that, withdrawing her hand. With her eyes widening, she stood upright as words began to pour from her mouth in an apologetic stream she had no way of stopping. “Oh, I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to touch a nerve. I’m sorry, I’ll just go-”

“Hey, hey,” Eventide called after her in a gentle voice, making her stop and look at him. He hesitated before slumping back into his seat and sighing. “I guess you’ve got a point, Fluttershy. But... It’s not so much that I’m scared of failing as it is that...” he ran a hand over his face again. “...I’m scared of letting people down… of not being able to do what’s needed of me.”

With some of her bravery returning, Fluttershy began to inch closer to Eventide again. “Hmm… I’ve always been able to see that, now that you mention it,” she said gently before again putting her hand on his shoulder. “But… for what it’s worth, Eventide… you haven’t let me down.”

Eventide managed to smile gratefully at that sentiment, relaxing under her touch. “I’m glad to hear it…” he muttered before closing his eyes. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, a yawn worked its way out of Fluttershy, making Eventide open an eye to look sideways at her. A playful grin appeared on his face, and he nudged her side with his elbow. “You might wanna head home. It’s been a long day, and your parents are probably gonna be getting worried about you.”

Fluttershy nodded slowly, opting to not make any remarks about her yawn. She turned and began to head for the door. “Okay. Goodnight, Eventide,” she called back before quietly pulling open the door and stepping out. It closed behind her, leaving Eventide alone with Buddha and plunging the room into a more solemn and contemplative silence. For several minutes, he remained seated, just letting his mind wander aimlessly from one thing to another. After a while of this, Buddha, who was clearly sensing his discomfort, stood and slowly walked up to him. When he didn’t immediately acknowledge her approach, she opted to nose his leg and let out a worried whimper.

Feeling her prodding his leg, he looked back down at her and saw those pools of brown looking back up at him with worry and curiosity. He exhaled softly and smiled at her. “Heh… hey girl,” he muttered while reaching a hand out to pet her. She was only all too eager to press her nose into it and lick at it while he set about petting her head and scratching behind her ears. They stayed like this for another few minutes before another sound pierced the silence and disturbed the peace.

Beebee was crying again.

Eventide was quick to nudge Buddha back and stand up, and she did not protest his movements. This was nothing new at this point, and she knew not to get in his way when Beebee was making a fuss. Still, she followed along a few paces behind him, her tail wagging slowly as she did so. Without a word, Eventide stepped back to his room where he saw that Beebee was still curled up, but his eyes were tightly screwed shut. There were tears rolling down his cheeks, and his entire body was shaking. His tiny forelegs were flexing repeatedly as if he was trying to grab onto something and pull it close, but it kept drifting away out of his grasp. With nothing else for it, Eventide gingerly picked the wailing bug up and held him close to his chest, slowly swinging his torso to the left and right.

Beebee would stop crying eventually, Eventide knew. And indeed, after perhaps half an hour had passed, Beebee tired himself out, and his cries faded away into silence once more. With a tired sigh, Eventide set Beebee down again near the foot of the bed before turning and heading for his dresser. Buddha watched him go until he was digging around inside one of the drawers, then she lifted her front paws up and rested them on the edge of the bed. She stared sadly at Beebee’s sleeping form with a facial expression of pure sympathy.

Beebee let out a sleepy squeak, his tongue instinctively flicking out to lick at his lips.

At this moment, Eventide came back from his dresser with an unused pillowcase in his hands. Buddha let herself down and backed out of his way, allowing him to carefully drape the pillowcase over Beebee like it were a blanket. The tiny bug smiled appreciatively, his hooves entangling themselves into the fabric and pulling it closer against his body. Eventide just watched him for a moment before deciding it was time that he got some sleep as well. As he set about changing into his pajamas, he couldn’t help but wonder why Beebee kept crying like that. It wasn’t the sound he made when he was angry at being stopped from doing something, it wasn’t the same noise he had made when his wing got stuck in his old skin, and it wasn’t the sounds he made when ‘hungry.’ It was different…

Sadly, as he fell beneath his blankets and allowed sleep to claim him, Eventide was no closer to finding the answers.







The sound of Eventide’s phone ringing on top of his dresser unceremoniously tore him from his slumber and a particularly entertaining dream about beetles and ice cream. With a snort and a grimace, he lifted his face from his pillow, reached over and pulled the blaring device over to see who was calling him. His eyes widened a bit when he saw that the time was not only well past noon but that it was Austere calling him. A chill ran down his spine as he recalled how he had fled from work the previous evening, and now his boss was calling him. “Oh boy…” he mumbled anxiously before answering the phone and holding it up to his ear. “Hello?”

“You forgot to clock out last night, and you left thirty minutes early.” came his boss’s stern and matter-of-fact greeting. “I know that it’s your day off today, but I was hoping you could explain to me why you jumped ship so suddenly and left Clean Sweep all on his own?”

    Eventide cringed and slowly slid out of bed, careful not to disturb the still soundly sleeping Beebee. He exited his bedroom and closed the door behind him before leaning against it. “I’m real sorry about that, boss. There was a personal emergency,” he explained simply, running a hand over his face. “Pet got sick, and I needed to take care of him.”

There were several moments of silence, and Eventide began to worry that he might have lost the connection, or that she was about to fire him or something. When he heard her let out a resigned sigh, though, he began to relax a little.

“I see. Well, that’s understandable. Just try to take better care of your pet from now on, you hear me? With classes at CHS as canceled as they are, we are going to see a huge spike in business. I’m going to need all hands ready to go at a moment's notice to keep up with the rush. Get someone to babysit your pets it if you have to.” Austere replied, the intensity and severity in her tone dropping significantly.

Eventide let out a silent breath that he hadn’t realized he had been holding. “Right, I’ll see what I can do. And sorry again,” he apologized, about ready to end this call and see if he could get in some more sleep.

“Don’t be sorry, be better. Now go drink a coffee or something; you sound exhausted,” and with those closing words, there was an almost deafening click, and the line went dead. Eventide just slumped there against the door for a moment before turning off his phone and opening the door to his room again. He was greeted by the sight of Beebee sitting up on the bed and looking back at him with sleepy eyes, the pillowcase he had been using as a blanket sliding off of him when his wings gave a quick little buzz. 

A tiny smile appeared on Eventide’s face at the sight. “Hey there, little guy. You were pretty tuckered out last night, weren’t ya?” he stated simply before stepping forward and flopping loosely back down on top of his bed. The action caused the mattress to rise around him, which in turn made Beebee jump slightly where he was. The movement pulled an adorably delighted giggle out of him even as he struggled to stay on his hooves. Eventide found the sound soothing in so many ways, and looked over at Beebee with a wry grin. “Heh. Maybe I should get you a trampoline,” he joked.

Beebee tilted his head as those words were spoken, scrunched up his muzzle in an effort to make heads or tails of them. Then, having made no progress, he proceeded to jump into the air. His wings gave a quick buzz to suspend him there for a second before going still and allowing gravity to send him falling fall back to the bed, where he drove his hooves into it with as much force as his small body could manage. The force of the impact was, regrettably, rather small.

All the same, Eventide got the idea. Now fully surrendered to the fact that he would get no more sleep this morning, he rolled over until he was on his hands and knees, looking directly into Beebee’s curious eyes. “You like bouncing?” he asked in a playful tone.

Beebee drove his hooves into the bed again while making needy little whines.

Well, Eventide didn’t need any more of an answer than that. With a smirk, he began to shove his palms down into the bed alongside his knees, repeating the motion over and over again. The result was immediate, and a series of rises and falls spread throughout the mattress like a wave effect of sorts. The rhythmic rise and fall allowed Beebee to lift into the air with every bob of the mattress, his wings buzzing in short bursts to keep him upright any time he lost his balance. The bouncing motions caused him to start laughing and giggling all over again, a sound that was music to Eventide’s ears. Seeing that Beebee liked the bigger waves, he applied more pressure, sending the bug slightly higher into the air.

Beebee’s laughter only got more intense, and that in turn sped Eventide on to make the bounces and waves bigger, which only made Beebee laugh harder. It was a vicious cycle of bounces and giggles.

Finally, Beebee’s laughs reached a fever pitch, and with an almighty squeal of merriment, the horn on his head began to glow with green light.

Eventide went rigid on seeing that, his eyes going wide and his jaw falling wide open in shock. Beebee looked back at him as the bounces and waves came to a stop, his eyes filled with confusion as to why the fun was suddenly over. Then a stray green spark shot out of his horn, drawing his attention. He watched the small point of green, flickering light drift through the air before fading into nothingness over the mattress. For a moment, all was painfully still. Then Beebee’s eyes crossed and looked up at the horn on his forehead, his mouth forming a little ‘o’ of wonder. That ‘o’ than blossomed into perhaps the biggest, most ecstatic grin that Eventide had ever seen on him.

Now giggling hysterically all over again, more sparks began to shoot out of Beebee’s horn, and all Eventide could do was watch with eyes as wide as saucers and a hanging jaw.

One of the sparks hit his bed.

The spot began to emit smoke.







Fluttershy’s morning had been going alright so far. She had gotten up feeling well rested and rejuvenated after Beebee’s incident from the previous day, she had taken a hot, relaxing bath, and now she was in the middle of enjoying a breakfast of toast, jam, and an apple. Humming a quiet tune to herself, she lifted the apple up to her mouth to take a bite when, to her surprise, her phone began to ring. Curious, she pulled it out of her pocket with her free hand and looked at the caller I.D. 

It was Eventide. 

Immediately worried that something bad might have happened to Beebee, she answered the phone and held it to her ear. “Hello?”

“Fluttershy, Beebee set my bed on fire.”

    There was a moment of silence before Fluttershy put down her apple. “...Um… what?"