Chapter 4: I'll Just Die for a Little While...
March 7th leaned in, her pink hair bouncing as she eyed the massive, chitinous monstrosity currently taking up a significant portion of the parlor car. "Speaking of the Path of Propagation... you don't have any weird urges in that regard, do you?"
"Buzzz... Propagation... Buzz... Not reproduction... Buzz... It's replication... Buzz..." Rekka corrected, his voice vibrating through his heavy mandibles in a low, mechanical drone.
"Too inefficient... Buzz..."
'What exactly is going on inside that girl's head?' Rekka thought, his compound eyes shifting to stare at her.
The intercom crackled to life, Pom-Pom's energetic voice echoing through the cabin. "The Astral Express is about to perform a warp jump! All passengers, please secure yourselves! Next destination: Herta Space Station!"
"Oh no, we're warping!" March 7th instantly dropped her teasing demeanor. She looked up at Rekka's towering, armored form with genuine concern. "Your body right now... Um, is everything okay? Do you need to wear a seatbelt? Or, like, be tied down somewhere?"
"Shouldn't... Buzz... need it... Buzz..."
Outside the reinforced windows, the cosmos began to distort. The brilliant, scattered diamonds of the starry sky stretched into blinding, colorful bands of light. A strange, heavy sense of spatial compression flooded the cabin.
"Buzzzzzzz—!"
Rekka couldn't hold back a long, high-pitched screech. The thick carapace plating his back began to shake violently, vibrating in perfect sync with the frequency of the warp tunnel. The fluorescent, bio-luminescent veins flowing across his translucent wings flared to life, glowing with a blinding, radioactive intensity.
"Wow! You're glowing!" March 7th threw her hands over her eyes, peeking through her fingers. "So bright! Did you just turn into a giant lightbulb?"
"Uncomfortable... Buzz... Feeling... Buzz... like I'm going to shatter... Buzz..."
"Hold on, hold on! Just relax! It'll be over soon!" Despite her casual tone, March 7th reached out, gently patting the thick, vibrating dorsal carapace of the giant bug in an attempt to soothe him. "You didn't get carsick during the last warp jump. I guess bugs really just aren't built for interstellar travel!"
Fortunately, the agonizing spatial distortion didn't last long.
With a slight, settling jolt, the blinding bands of light outside the window snapped back into the quiet, deep abyss of the starry sky.
"Are you okay?" March 7th squatted down, cautiously poking his rigid carapace. "Hey? Are you still alive in there? Give me a buzz?"
"Buzz..."
Rekka responded weakly. His two massive antennae drooped pitifully against the carpeted floor. The spatial turbulence of the warp jump had thoroughly scrambled his insectoid equilibrium. He was completely, utterly motion-sick.
"Are you alright? Do you want some water? Wait, how do bugs even drink water..." She gestured uncertainly toward Rekka's terrifying mouthparts, then immediately snatched her hand back.
"No need... Buzz... Recovering... Buzz..."
Rekka gritted his mandibles and struggled to prop his massive bulk up. He managed to lift his upper body halfway off the floor before his strength completely gave out. With a heavy thud, he plopped back down. The protective wing covers on his back hung limply, and the once-blinding fluorescent veins had dimmed to a sickly, pale flicker.
Then, gravity and his own awkward center of mass took over. He rolled over onto his back, all six of his barbed limbs curling inward. He lay completely paralyzed on the floor, looking exactly like a dead bug.
"Passenger March 7th? Passenger Rekka? The warp jump is over, are you guys alright... Pom?!"
Pom-Pom's long, floppy ears bounced as the conductor poked their head into the parlor car. Then, the Express conductor froze.
This was the scene before them:
A giant, blue-purple insectoid monstrosity lay flat on its back. Its six terrifying, barb-lined legs were weakly curled against its chest. Its dorsal wing covers were crumpled and splayed open. The entire creature looked as though it had just breathed its last breath.
"Passenger Rekka! What's wrong, Passenger Rekka!!!" Pom-Pom's short little legs instantly kicked into overdrive, blurring at a speed far beyond their physical limits. The conductor sprinted over with a frantic thump-thump-thump, running distressed circles around the massive bug. "Don't die, Pom! You just turned into a bug today, you haven't lived enough yet, Pom!!!"
"Not dead... Buzz..."
Rekka weakly twitched one translucent wing.
"Carsick... Buzz..."
"Carsick... carsick?" Pom-Pom stopped dead in their tracks, blinking in stunned silence before letting out a massive sigh of relief. A second later, the anxiety returned. "But can bugs even get carsick, Pom?"
"Probably... Buzz... related to the form... Buzz..."
Rekka braced his muscles and tried to flip himself over.
A second passed. Then two.
He suddenly realized a horrifying biological truth: he couldn't turn back over.
His six legs waved uselessly in the empty air. His heavy carapace scraped against the polished floorboards with a harsh, grating squeak as he rocked side to side, but he simply couldn't muster the use needed to right himself.
"Pfft—"
March 7th slapped a hand over her mouth, but a snort escaped anyway.
"Sorry, sorry!" She turned her head away, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. "I really didn't mean to laugh, but you look exactly like a flipped-over beetle! No, wait, you literally are a big beetle right now!"
"You... Buzz... Stop just laughing... Buzz... Help me turn over... Buzz..."
"Me? Help you?" March 7th pointed at herself in exaggerated disbelief. "You want me, a delicate, beautiful girl, to try and bench-press a giant space bug?"
"Should Pom call Passenger Welt to come help, Pom?"
"No need... Buzz..." Rekka finally gave up his futile struggling, letting his six legs drop back against his chest. "Let me... Buzz... lie here a while longer... Buzz... Carsick... Buzz... Haven't recovered... Buzz..."
"Hey, your antennae moved." March 7th leaned in, reaching out a curious finger to cautiously tap one of the two long, segmented antennae protruding from his head.
The antenna twitched with hyper-sensitive speed. Before she could blink, it reflexively coiled around her finger like a whip.
"Whoa! It's grabbing me!"
"Instinct... Buzz... Can't let go... Buzz... You pull it off yourself... Buzz..."
March 7th tugged at her finger, trying to pull free, but the antenna only tightened its grip in response. "Hey, aren't your antennae a little too strong?"
"I told you... Buzz... Instinct... Buzz..."
"Then can't you just control your instincts?"
"I'm trying to control it... Buzz... But... Buzz... it's a little hard... Buzz..."
The sliding doors hissed open. Welt Yang and Himeko stepped out from the observation car, stopping dead in their tracks as they took in the chaotic scene.
Welt pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, staring at the giant, flipped-over bug holding March 7th hostage by the finger. He remained silent for two long seconds. "It seems like he's adapting to his new form quite well?"
"Uncle Yang, look at him!" March 7th complained, pointing her free hand at Rekka's pathetic, upside-down form. "He can't even flip over!"
"This..." Welt pondered the physics of the situation for a moment, then cast a sideways glance at Himeko. "Should we lend a hand?"
Himeko took a slow, elegant sip from her coffee cup, a faint, amused smile curving her lips. "I think it's quite interesting to let him try hard on his own."
"Buzz!" Rekka let out a mournful, vibrating cry of betrayal.
But a very practical problem still remained.
How exactly was a massive, heavy-armored insect supposed to disembark from the Astral Express?
"Come on...! Come on! Shrink a little!"
Through sheer force of will, Rekka forced his biological structure to compress. His massive, chitinous exterior suddenly began to shrink. He compressed his mass down, down, down... finally reducing himself to a size just barely small enough to be shoved sideways through the Express doors.
With a loud whoosh, he tumbled out onto the platform of the Herta Space Station. The moment he cleared the doors, his body rapidly expanded back to its original, terrifying size of seven or eight meters.
He hit the platform floor with a heavy thud. And because momentum was a cruel mistress, he immediately rolled right back onto his back.
His antennae crossed over his face in a perfect X. His six legs snapped tightly against his abdomen. The cool, metallic floor of the space station pressed against his dorsal carapace, sending a wave of soothing relief through his motion-sick nervous system.
This posture... actually made him feel incredibly secure.
In short, he was playing dead.
It was a deeply ingrained biological response. Insects of the order Coleoptera—such as scarab beetles or ground beetles—possessed this exact survival instinct. Upon sensing a threat or experiencing a strange touch, they would instantly flip onto their backs, fold their claws tight against their abdomen, cross their antennae, and remain completely motionless, mimicking a dead husk.
If the external stimulus continued, the duration of this playing-dead behavior would only increase.
"Are you still alive? Rekka?"
First rule of Coleoptera habits: When encountering a threat, a strange touch, or severe motion sickness, just die for a little while first.
Back on the Express, he had barely managed to fight his instincts enough to vibrate his wings and speak. But after being repeatedly poked and prodded by March 7th, his insectoid nervous system had completely bypassed his conscious mind, seizing direct control of his motor functions and issuing the highest priority biological command.
'Die for a while first.'
"It seems... he really died?" March 7th quickly withdrew her hand, looking down at the massive, rigid bug. She shot a highly guilty glance over her shoulder at Dan Heng and Welt, who had just stepped off the train. "Um, Uncle Yang, Dan Heng... I swear I didn't use insecticide! I just poked him lightly twice..."
"He shouldn't be dead," Dan Heng stated with absolute calm, his sharp eyes scanning the massive creature. "The color of his carapace hasn't darkened, and his vital signs... although incredibly weak, are stable."
"Then what is he doing? Playing possum?"
"This is tonic immobility."
Welt pushed his glasses up once more, his tone shifting into a mild, academic lecture. "Many insects in the order Coleoptera exhibit this exact reaction when startled. They remain completely motionless to deceive predators, or it simply manifests as a state of rigidity resulting from sudden nerve stimulation. also..."
Welt directed a rather helpless look at March 7th, whose finger was already hovering in the air, preparing to poke the giant bug a third time.
"also, in this specific state, the more frequent the external stimulation, the longer the playing-dead state will last. March 7th, if you don't want us to stand around on this platform until dinnertime, you had better stop touching him."
"Ah? There's a biological setting like that?" March 7th quickly snatched her hand back, hiding it behind her back. "I didn't know! I saw he wasn't moving, thought he had fainted, and just wanted to wake him up!"
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