Hauling everything out of the forge’s cellar was a daunting, straining task, but with Smith Jaleel and the town chief helping Dahlia out, they eventually managed to drag ‘it’ up to the surface.
The dismantled carcass of the broken Mutant firefly was as frightening as she remembered it: four jagged black arms, two eerily human-like legs, and an almost womanly figure with the pointed chin and the smooth, segmented chitin around its thorax. Without lantern light, she could easily mistake it for a human corpse… only, its flesh had all but rotten away, its arms were severed and had to be carried up individually, and it was just the black husk of the monster she’d unmade with her own two hands.
While the town chief pulled her daughter to the back of the forge, covering their noses with a distasteful frown on their faces, Dahlia and Smith Jaleel spread the full carcass out in the centre of the forge. The young man pushed the anvils away to make more room, creating what could only be described as a ritual circle surrounding the charred-black carcass; it appeared the marks and burns its chitin had sustained back when it’d overheated itself with lightning still remained, though they hardly mattered if Dahlia was just going to stick it in the fire anyways. She’d turn the whole thing glowing red if she had to.
She didn’t immediately know what to do with the carcass, though, and neither did Smith Jaleel. The two of them stood around in a circle, staring down at its lifeless, eyeless head, and Dahlia was the first to shiver.
It wasn’t even that cold outside, but she found her arms hugging herself, an involuntary shudder running down her spine.
… It’s still terrifying, isn’t it?
Dead or not… that thing–
[Is a bug you unmade,] Issam whispered. [Turn it into your strength. Carve off its armour and make whatever you want with it. That is the way of an assassin bug, is it not?]
…
Sucking in a slow, heavy breath, she closed her eyes briefly before stepping forward, her gaze steady as she scanned the carcass up and down.
Time was of the essence here. She couldn’t stand around deliberating what the best possible Swarmsteel she could make was; she had a maximum of one hour before she had to go down and confront Madamaron if she wanted to help the captured townsfolk.
Think.
What’s the best thing I can make in one hour?
She racked her head. She dropped to her knees, peeled her eyelids wide open, and glared at the carcass of the firefly like she’d never hated anything as badly before. Its severed arms were almost fully intact, but its chest was carved open—she was the one who’d plunged her hands into its heart—and the claw marks on its thorax and abdomen where she’d followed the silver path made those parts nigh-unusable. Whatever the case, she would have to throw the whole carcass into the fire and soften it up so she could remould it into something useful, but… what?
… And she was reminded, looking down at her own forearms, the very first Swarmsteel she’d made from a fresh giant bug carcass.
Simple.
But efficient.
[And it should have a special ability, too,] Eria murmured. [If I am not mistaken, Swarmsteel crafted from the parts of a Mutant firefly all have the capabilities of–]
[Shh,] Issam interrupted. [Let her discover it for herself.]
[She’s the Make-Whatever, isn’t she?]
And though she was being stared at by Smith Jaleel and the town chief and the chief’s daughter all at once, her time spent working in the forge had made her grow slightly thicker skin, and some plates of chitin over her skin to boot; she felt she could bear the weight of their gazes as she picked up the firefly’s severed arms, sticking all four of them into the fire behind her while kicking the rest of the carcass aside.
She didn’t let go of any of the severed arms while they heated up. She winced, she squirmed, and she wanted to tear away, but the fire had to burn her—her father always told her a Swarmsteel couldn’t be refined without heat, nor a girl without trials. The pain would keep her sharp and alert.
[What do you wanna make, Dahlia?] Amula asked, voice swerving to her left.
[Something stretchy and breathable? Like our moth mantles?] Ayla and Aylee said, voices swerving to her right.
[A weapon,] Raya grunted. [A blade. A swordstaff. You can chain all four firefly arms together and make a chain-whip.]
[Weapons like that don’t suit Dahlia,] Issam countered. [If she’s gonna make something, it’s gotta be–]
You know, it's been two months already.
You can stop pretending to be them now.
Clenching her jaw, twisting her lips, she yanked the glowing red arms out of the fire and slammed them onto the anvil behind her. The chitin sparked blue as it came in contact with the tough iron block, making everyone but her flinch—she was still slightly teary-eyed, after all.
She wasn’t even consciously thinking about it as she moulded the firefly arms with her bare hands, stretching and pressing and curling them into the shapes she wanted.
… I know.
Issam is dead.
Raya, Amula, Ayla, Aylee, and Jerie are dead.
You’re not them, you’re not Eria, and you don’t have to pretend like you are.
Who are you?
The firefly arms were still sharp. Incredibly tough. She had to grit her teeth and endure both the heat and the cuts in her palms as she worked the clay-like chitin.
It wasn’t until a bead of sweat dropped from her brows and hissed against the chitin that the six voices in her head became many; a disjointed, broken entity.
And the voices were irrefutably inhuman.
[… We are the Bloodline of assassin bugs from four decades ago, before we were massacred by the Worm Mage and Thousand-Tongue of the Long March,] they said, and they sounded like a hundred voices blending together; formless, genderless. They reverberated through her skull. [Humans who eat insects typically get consumed by the insects themselves. They hear the voices of the devoured, and the more insects they eat and the more voices they start to hear inside their heads, they gradually mutate into said insects… this doesn’t happen if you have one of those nasty ‘systems’, of course. The systems block the 'Bloodline' voices out. They stop humans from mutating uncontrollably and turn eating insect flesh into a game of ‘points’ and ‘attributes’.]
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...
[But we are the Bloodline of assassin bugs, and our blood is potent enough that it matters not if you have an Altered Swarmsteel System to block us out,] the Bloodline said, chortling, a chorus of imbalance. [Even if you have a system now, your mother had been carrying assassin bug blood in her veins since before you were even born. You were born with us: the voices that showed you the path to unmaking everything in your way.]
[Of course, you never realised you were listening to us when you were a child—and the nightmares you had of us—but when you ate that firefly two months ago and consumed insect flesh for the first time, you strengthened us. You awakened us fully. Now we can speak to you like this, and you cannot ignore us any longer.]
Dahlia kept her eyes cool and steely as she turned the chitin around, curving and moulting the other side.
… And you’re the reason why mama and papa mutated into those things?
Half-insects?
[Not directly.]
[Your mother had already been carrying our blood in her veins before she even arrived in Alshifa, but your father did not. Had the two of them stayed from consuming insect flesh, they would not have strengthened their assassin bug blood, and they could have stayed human for a lot longer. Alas, your father injected your mother’s blood in himself in an attempt to cure both of them, and they both began consuming insect flesh without systems to stave us off—what were we supposed to do?]
[Not mutate them into assassin bugs?]
…
[The same goes for you, too,] the Bloodline whispered, and their voice came from everywhere; above, below, left and right. She kept her eyes focused on the firefly chitin in her hands. [For as long as you live, we will whisper to you. We will have you grow stronger and gather power from every foul bug you slaughter, because that is what assassin bugs do. We eat. We take. We carry their corpses, and we steal their abilities for ourselves. It is nothing as crude as what that Hasharana girl does with her silk, mimicking fighting styles and copying weapons. We absorb, we assimilate, and we adapt. Until you become the strongest in the world or go mad like your father and mother before you, we will not stop–]
That’s fine by me.
So you’re on my side, right?
Silence.
Dahlia smiled softly, flattening the firefly chitin against the anvil as she did.
[... We are on our side,] the Bloodline growled. [We are assassin bugs. We eat. We take. We carry–]
You’re not on the Swarm’s side, are you?
You just want to eat and steal as many abilities as you can, right?
Good.
An assassin bug carries the dead on its back, so even if you’ve been using the voices of the people I love just to manipulate me… I’m glad that someone still remembers those people alongside me.
[...]
I want to grow stronger.
I want to make my own destiny.
If the peace I’m looking for doesn’t exist out there, I’ll make it myself, and I’ll slaughter the Swarm while I’m at it.
[... We are on our–]
Two conditions.
One, stop pretending to be my friends. I don’t… I don’t want you manipulating me like that anymore.
Two—and I don’t know if this is possible—but I want you to become one with Eria.
The little assassin bug on her shoulder turned to look pointedly at her.
[What?] the Bloodline hissed.
[Dahlia,] Eria warned. [I intentionally kept vital information on this ‘Bloodline’ away from you, hoping it would eventually fade away by itself, but if you acknowledge its presence now–]
Eria. You were created by the Hasharana to stand with humanity, but you didn’t ask to leave with Alice so you could find a user that actually wants to fight for humanity. In that sense, you’ve already betrayed humanity.
Bloodline. You were born from the Swarm, but you don’t particularly care about killing humans. As long as you can get stronger, you’re happy. In that sense, you’ve already betrayed the Swarm.
Neither of you… belong anywhere but with me.
[...]
Dahlia forced a smile onto her face as the firefly chitin started solidifying into four, jagged shapes; they were turning out just as she’d hoped.
Eria. You know everything there is to know about humanity. You know about the Seven Swarmsteel Fronts, the Hasharana, and you can pull up mean recipes from every corner of the continent.
Bloodline. You know everything there is to know about the Swarm. You’re the reason why I have a knack for unmaking bugs, and you’re the one who guides my hands when I’m making Swarmsteel unconsciously, just like I’m doing right now.
If the two of you can merge into one and combine your strengths, just like an assassin bug could…
…
… Wouldn’t you be the best Swarmsteel I’ve ever made?
Carving in the finishing details, she dumped the firefly chitin into the bucket of quenching oil under the anvil, and then—she flicked a claw across her entire forearm, bleeding out a steady stream of golden ichor as she held it over the bucket.
She was still smiling.
She knew what she wanted to do now.
… Thank you, Bloodline, for showing me the steel path all this time. Thank you, Eria, for speaking in mom’s voice for so long.
But… I’m okay now.
So I need the two of you to hop onto my back and become friends, okay?
[...]
And there was no sound.
No indication that anything had happened in her nape.
But it was like something just clicked inside her head, and the next time ‘it’ spoke in her head, it was one, unified voice.
It wasn’t her mother’s voice, nor the voice of her friends—it was something entirely different, and she just knew she’d love it from now on.
[... Assimilating assassin bug ‘Bloodline’ into personal system assistant ‘Archive’,] it said, as she wrapped her bloody forearm with a piece of cloth and bent over, sticking her arms through all four Swarmsteel in the bucket. [Knowledge integration complete. Full-body physiological information reassessed, complete. Deploying personal system assistant based on user demand; what will I be called from now on, Dahlia?]
She stood up straight and lifted her firefly bracers out of the bucket, still dripping and sleazing with oil… but the carvings on them made streaks of gold and black swirl around them in the pattern of a drill, and she thought it was easily the prettiest thing she’d ever made.
It was also the strongest Swarmsteel she’d ever made.
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[4x Firefly Bracers (Quality = C)(Str +2/12)(Tou +2/4)(Strain +288)]
[Special Ability: Defensive Lightning]
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“... You will be ‘Kari’,” Dahlia whispered, holding up her arms as her eyes glittered at the golden bracers—then she slammed them down on the anvil, hardening her face, steeling her nerves.
Jagged, azure sparks of lightning exploded in a small radius where her bracers made harsh contact with the iron block, and once again, everyone but her flinched.
By herself, she was smiling wider than she’d ever smiled before.
“You will be the ‘home’ I carry on my back,” she said, “until I can make one for myself.”
[...]
And Kari was still a little assassin bug on her shoulder.
Only now, it’d shed its oily black form and picked one with golden streaks and dots on it, mimicking her bracers.
[... Thirty-eight minutes remaining,] Kari said, sounding almost cheery as it crawled over her face, poking her cheeks. [Now go save the townsfolk and kill Madamaron, the Destroyer.]