I need a shield, I thought desperately as I continued to toss myself out of the way of the monster's attacks. With each jab, the hornet's serrated stinger was getting closer and closer to my fragile self. My eyes darted around looking for something, anything, that I could place between myself and the murderous creature in front of me. 

Suddenly my foot hit a crack in the road that no self-respecting paver would ever have left behind and I sprawled forward. The spine-tingle warning came but the best I could do was turn to face the jagged stinger coming towards me. Instinct had me throwing my arms up in front of me in a last-ditch attempt to somehow protect myself but I knew it wouldn’t be enough. As the hornet zoomed full throttle towards me a burst of what felt like liquid energy flowed down my arms. Just as the hornet jabbed its stinger forward, a wall of pale gold appeared in front of me.

A screech of pain came from the hornet and my mouth dropped open when I peeked around the gold wall which oddly resembled a shield that I had occasionally wielded back in my 3rd life. Not only had the shield stopped the hornet, but it had also bent its stinger into almost a 90-degree angle. The monster hornet shrieked and flew straight for the shield that was floating a few inches in front of me with its jaw open. I flinched when the hornet chomped down on the shield, but instead of the shield bending, the hornet's jaws made a horrendous cracking sound. 

Dazed and confused, the hornet flew up and waggled its antenna toward me and the strange shield. I also stared at the shield in awe, wondering where it had come from. Glancing down at my arms and then up at the shield, I slowly extended my hands. My eyes widened when the shield, which had been big enough to cover me completely, shrank down to a manageable size. I jolted in surprise when whatever material the shield was made out of extended to cover my hands so that I was almost connected to the shield itself. 

The hornet gave a guttural shriek as it watched me warily, probably deciding whether it should continue trying to kill me or fall back. I knew that in normal circumstances an eleven-year-old had no chance against a beast like this. But I was not a normal eleven-year-old. Narrowing my eyes at the monstrous insect above me I pulled one hand off the shield and then banged my fist against it, creating a surprisingly loud echoing thud. 

Its antenna moved swiftly in the air as I banged tauntingly against my shield and after a moment its wing thumping grew more insistent as it dove towards me. With its bent stinger, it had to fly at an awkward angle to try and stab me. Separating myself from the shield I dashed around it the moment the hornet connected with its pale gold surface and ran behind the monster. With nothing but a thought from me, the shield that the hornet was facing suddenly tilted forward and slammed down to the ground, trapping both the bent part of the stinger and two of its spindly legs. 

With the hornet pinned temporarily, I leaped up and grabbed onto the base of the hornet's wings. Its fuzzy body felt oddly coarse and I winced as the thick fuzz rubbed painfully against the many cuts and road rash that I had acquired. Ignoring the discomfort, I held on firmly to the bucking hornet’s wings and pushed myself up towards its neck. 

Fearing I’d fall off, I silently wished I had something to anchor myself with. Within the same breath, another wave of energy coursed through me, moving down my legs this time. I looked down in amazement to see that same pale gold material wrapping around my legs and then hook into the hornet’s back. The creature shrieked in pain and struggled wildly to toss me off its back but I wasn’t going anywhere. 

With another thought the shield that had been holding the hornet down zoomed up to me. I snatched it, noticing that it had already molded itself so that the bottom tip had changed from a smooth curve to a harsh point. Raising the shield above my head I brought it down hard at the base of one of the hornet’s wings. The beast screamed as its wing dangled useless but I had already switched my position and brought the shield’s edge down on the other wing. 

The way the pale gold material slid through the hornet's wing joint and even into the exoskeleton beneath was impossibly smooth. I didn’t have time to marvel though, I shifted the shield in my hands once again and this time aimed for the neck. Green gunk bled from the back of the hornet’s neck as the tip of my shield bit into it. Gathering my strength I pulled back the shield and jammed it down again and again. I didn’t stop until the rancid green slime was flowing continuously from the hornet. It gave a final shudder before collapsing to the ground. 

The gold material that had anchored me to the creature’s back melted away so completely that I wondered if it had ever been there in the first place. My shield remained though and I clutched it tightly as I looked up. My arms were shivering from exhaustion and my stomach was churning dangerously from the awful smell of both monster and human blood all around me. A hornet that had killed its prey a yard away turned and leveled its black eyes at me.

Can I kill another one? I wondered to myself as I shakily got to my feet, not taking my eyes off of the insect. 

A new smell registered in my overloaded brain and I blinked when a tornado of flames suddenly engulfed the hornet that had set its sights on me. Holding the shield in front of me to guard against the intense heat of the flames, I turned and saw a young man with rich black skin who couldn’t be more than twenty. He was holding his hands out with an expression of both disbelief and excitement as he conjured the massive column of flames. Our eyes connected and the guy’s mouth dropped open in shock. He quickly stopped his flames and ran over to me. 

“Hey, kid! You okay?” he asked in a rush. His eyes widened when he saw the mutilated hornet I was standing on and the telltale green gunk that had splashed across my torn-up jeans. 

“They’re coming!” I responded through gritted teeth as the sound of multiple hornets flying our way echoed in my ears. 

Noticing the incoming enemies, he set his jaw and took a protective stance in front of me. It was actually touching to see a complete stranger willingly risk his life for me like that. 

“Stay behind me, kid,” the guy instructed before bringing his hands up in front of him. “I don’t actually know how I’m doing this so you might want to take a few steps back.”

Seeing as how gasoline had seeped into the right side of my clothes earlier, I took his warning seriously and gave him some space. Another circling column of fire shot out from the boy’s hands to meet the oncoming monsters. High-pitched shrieks of pain rang through the air as the hornets melted from the intensity of the fire. 

Turning to look in the other direction I noticed what looked like the nice policeman who had talked to me a few days ago aiming his gun at hornets with a determined expression on his face. Whenever he pulled the trigger though instead of a high-speed bullet that I couldn’t see, a stream of electric blue light shot out of the gun which connected with disastrous results for the hornets he was aiming at. A few more people who had survived the wave of hornet monsters were also exhibiting supernatural powers and were fighting for their lives. 

A familiar thumping buzz sounded from my right and as quick as thought, the shield I had been holding grew and floated up to protect me just as a hornet tried to ram me through. Knowing I didn’t have the strength to kill another hornet, I grabbed the bottom of the shield and swung my arms. The shield followed as if it was an extension of my body and smacked the hornet towards the column of fire that the guy who’d come to protect me was still creating. 

He jolted a bit when the hornet flew past him and straight into his fire. His eyes widened and I could see the questions gathering on his tongue so I just helplessly shrugged. Which in turn made the larger-than-life shield my hands were connected to rise and fall as easily as if it weighed less than a feather. Fire guy blinked but then let out a slightly hysteric chuckle and turned back to focus on frying as many of the hornets as he could find. 

Keeping a few feet between us, I moved along behind him. Anytime a hornet tried to sneak up on fire guy’s back I used my shield to smack them aside or into the fire if I could get the angle right. How the heck an eleven-year-old girl could have the force to smack around a hornet twice the size of her with a shield that no normal human should have been able to lift… I had no idea. But hey, that’s what’s great about fantasy stories right? Things that shouldn’t be possible suddenly are and you just get to roll with it. 

I have no idea how much time passed, but both the fire guy and I were panting heavily into the smoky air by the time the last hornet monster had been torched. There were a few moments of tense silence as the other human survivors glanced around to see if we’d really gotten them all. A strange swooshing sound cut through the tense stillness in the air and all of us survivors turned to look at the gate. With my muscles quivering from how tightly they were clenched, I watched warily as the gate's black edges began to swirl and pulsate.  

“Hey, kid,” the fire guy called out in a hushed tone. “Is this a good or a bad thing?” 

Before I could ask why he thought that I would have any idea, the gate suddenly began to grow. Fire guy and I both stepped back as the gate swelled from about five feet to nearly ten feet in diameter. I gulped and nearly jumped out of my skin when a hand suddenly rested on my shoulder. 

Whipping away from the enlarged gate I looked up to see the policeman, his cap long gone and blood from a cut near his hairline dripping down the side of his face. He gave me a reassuring smile, glancing with brief confusion at the massive shield attached to my hands, before gently pushing me behind him. I blinked in surprise as a scary-looking older lady wearing a torn leather jacket and a woman wearing a business suit who was covered head to toe in green slime followed the policeman. All four of the adults stood in front of me and squared off against the large gate. 

A buzzing so loud it reverberated in my chest sounded from within the gate and my heart seemed to be thudding painfully against my ribcage. A shadow covered the entrance of the gate and I couldn’t keep a whimper from escaping me as a hornet nearly twice the size of the ones we’d been fighting slowly flew out. Its massive fuzzy body had a distinctive red tinge unlike its yellow minions, it was sporting two serrated stingers from its bottom end, and its wings were longer than its body and seemed to be twice as thick as the smaller ones we’d defeated. 

The boss monster, I thought with an inward groan. This day just gets better and better.