Zora, Cecilia, Marcus, and Julius set off from the dorm sharp at ten in the dead of night, and if things went well, this would be Zora’s last time heading towards the Swarm instead of away from the Swarm.
He'd put the kids to bed. He'd fed them, double-checked their satchels, and made sure all of them were ready to evacuate from the academy first thing tomorrow morning. A guilty smile had twisted his lips when he broke up the little party in Emilia's room an hour ago, but it was for the best that they all got their good night's rest for the long march to come—it was best, too, if the four of them were the only ones to sneak off towards the northern building, because there was no doubt they'd run into big troubles on the way there.
So, without closing the northern foyer gate behind them, the four of them began trudging up the stairs to the botanical garden once again, bundles of food, water, and medical supplies in their satchels.
“... You sure your medicine will stave off the effects of bug meat overconsumption until we reach the borough in a week?” Cecilia asked, glancing in Julius' way. “It’d suck if Zora and I just dropped dead in the middle of the long march, especially after we just cleaned the entire rest of our insect flesh stock for… how many points? Zora, how much did you get?”
He tapped his nape in response, pulling up his status screen for everyone to see.
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[Name: Zora Fabre]
[Class: Magicicada]
[Hexichor Art: God Tongue]
[Hexichor Aura: 579/600 (97%]
[Points: 155]
[Strength: 6, Speed: 5, Toughness: 6, Dexterity: 3, Perceptivity: 4]
[// MUTATION TREE]
[T1 Mutation | Resilin Tymbal]
[T2 Mutations | Acute Tympana | Hollow Abdomen]
[T3 Mutations | Diurnal Colouration | Hyaline Wings | Segmented Setae] 150P
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“Hundred fifty-five,” he said plainly, waving the screen away, “it's enough for a tier three mutation, but given Cecilia and I have been eating well over ten times what we normally eat, we're still going to be crippled from food poisoning or indigestion in a week or two. Julius' medicine will just prevent us from dying outright.”
“Hopefully,” Julius added.
“It better,” Cecilia warned, smacking him on the back of his head with a nervous frown. “If we drop in the middle of the march, you and muscleman are carrying us all the way to the borough. You're not going to make the kids carry us, are you, Mister Tadius?”
Marcus barked out a hearty laugh. “Like he can! Look at him! Even Emilia's got more meat on her bones–”
“O-Of course not,” Julius mumbled, clutching the straps of his satchel as he nodded slowly back at Cecilia. “I… well, the medicine should help with indigestion… or delay the effects of food poisoning… or something along those lines. I've never tried it myself, so–”
“–you don't sound very sure, man–”
“–it should work, in theory, but maybe it… uh… well, I can just heal you if something goes wrong–”
Zora sighed and smacked Julius on the back of his head—as did Marcus and Cecilia, just for the fun of it.
“Unlock the tier three mutation ‘Hyaline Wings’, Cecilia,” Zora mumbled. “Maybe the thin chitin armour from ‘Diurnal Colouration’ will protect us, and maybe being able to walk on walls and ceilings with ‘Segmented Setae’ would be useful, but I'd much rather have wings that’ll prevent us from falling to our deaths.”
Julius had given all of them the basic rundown of what each of their tier three mutations should do, but where they were currently headed, Zora already knew which one he should unlock first. The system immediately responded to his vocal command and made the skin on his back pop and crackle; he gritted his teeth and endured the mutation, feeling his wings cutting out the back of his shirt.
Even if cicadas weren't particularly strong fliers, having wings would at least prevent them from dying after being swiped out a window in the colossal northern building.
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[T3 Mutation Unlocked: Hyaline Wings]
[Brief Description: You have grown glassy wings proficient at burst movement and short gliding. This is a channeled mutation. Maintaining flight will continuously drain your Hexichor Aura, so you cannot use your wings indefinitely.]
[Unallocated Points: 155 → 5]
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As they reached the botanical garden and began striding across, he pinched his glassy amber veins and felt nothing. Maybe it’d take some time for blood to flow into his wings. Cecilia, too, had finished unlocking the mutation, and she was constantly glancing behind her to pluck at her fabric-like wings with childlike curiosity—they were certainly much more prominent mutations than anything they’d unlocked previously, after all.
“I bet you still can’t outrun me with those wings,” Marcus sneered, elbowing Zora’s wings as they passed the field of giant bug carcasses, entering the forest of silver trees once again. “You still need some exercise, skellyman. The long march to the borough will either break you or toughen you up, so I’ll charge you a hundred silvers for every hour I have to carry you and crystalblood.”
“I-I won’t need to be carried,” Julius mumbled, chewing his nails as he looked nervously around the forest. “It’s… I’ll just drug myself the entire way. Yep. Lots of strength-enhancing, stamina-boosting drugs. M-Maybe I should do it now, actually. I… still have a few drug syringes to spare–”
Zora and Cecilia’s ears perked at the same time, and they whipped out their wands while Marcus cracked his fist, shoving Julius behind him.
For his part, Zora narrowed his eyes at the dark overhead canopy, trying to pinpoint where he’d heard the rustling sound.
“You heard that too, didn’t you?” he muttered.
“Mhm,” Cecilia muttered back. “It’s close. Very close.”
“I thought you went feral mode and ripped through all the bugs in the garden just a few hours ago,” Marcus said, scowling back at the cowering Julius as he did. “What, did you leave a few alive? Always finish the job, man. If you’re gonna kill one, you might as well kill all of them–”
“I-I did kill them all! We ate them and shared the flesh between all of us, didn't we?” Julius said, his glasses about to fall off his face as he hugged Marcus’ waist, shivering from head to toe. “At least… I think we did. I’m not really sure. B-Besides, what’s to say giant bugs from outside the garden can’t just… waltz right in? Who knows what sort of monstrosities have wandered down from the north–”
The rustling came again, and it was much, much closer than any of them expected. Zora and Cecilia whirled on Marcus, wands poised and ready to strike. Marcus whirled on Julius, fist reared back and ready to bash a bug’s head open. Julius, too, pulled out multiple glowing syringes and gripped them in his fists like brass knuckles—but then they all blinked, holding off their attacks for just a second long enough to hear the sound again.
It came from inside Marcus’ satchel, and Zora couldn’t help but scowl as he lowered his wand, walking forward to fling the bag open.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Little Emilia smiled nervously up at him with a half-eaten bloodberry candy in her hands, looking guilty as charged.
“... Mister Zora–”
“Go back to your room and sleep,” he grumbled, pulling her out by the arms before plopping her down; Julius took the opportunity and got his revenge, whacking Marcus on the back of his head for not paying attention to stowaways. “Inside a healthy body lives a healthy ghost, and you can’t be healthy if you don’t sleep. Now go. The four of us will be back by tomorrow morning to lead all of you guys out of the academy–”
Emilia shook her head vehemently, clinging to his leg as he tried to nudge her away. “No! I wanna be with you!”
“It’s not like Titus and the others will bite you now, right?” he said, trying to peel her arms off his leg to no avail. “We’re just… going off to check on the Headmaster. She’s got something the bugs want, so if we don’t take her with us, a lot of humans outside the academy are going to be very, very hurt. We’ll be back before you even know it–”
“I’m not sleepy, so I’m going with you!”
He grimaced, clenching his jaw. He’d no idea what brought this on all of a sudden—she was having a mighty fun time with Titus and the others the last time he saw them, telling them to go to bed—but Cecilia tapped his shoulder before he could try casting a spell on her, smiling softly down at the little girl with tears in her eyes.
“You’ll behave if you follow us, right?” Cecilia asked, softening her voice, “we’re going somewhere that might be dangerous—more dangerous than anywhere else we’ve taken you to—so if we tell you to run, you run. No talk-backs. If you can promise that, Zora will let you come with us.”
Emilia didn’t miss a beat, her face lighting up instantly. “Promise! I’ll behave! Shh!”
And with that, it seemed like a decision was made unanimously without Zora’s input. Marcus shrugged, Julius was still cowering behind the big man, and Cecilia was glaring at Zora with a pointed stare. It said ‘she’s already followed us all this time, so what’s the harm in taking her with us on this last trip around the academy’?
To that, Zora had no real counter-argument other than ‘I don’t want her following us this time’.
But that won’t fly with Emilia, would it?
“... Fine,” he muttered, holding out his hand for Emilia to take with a giddy grin. Cecilia patted his back with a sarcastic ‘job well done’ smirk, and neither Marcus nor Julius could ignore the opportunity to hit him harder than usual. He clicked his tongue at the two before warning Emilia sternly, looking her right in the eyes. “But we’re serious this time, okay? It will be dangerous, so if I tell you to run, don’t hesitate like the last time you carried Miss Sarius and Mister Evander away.”
Emilia nodded cheerily, and that was about the most serious response he could get from her before she launched into a rhapsody about sparkler fireworks.
While the five of them trudged through the forest, past the demolished greenhouse, and towards the northern end of the garden where a set of double doors stood in the way between the orphan academy and the academy, Emilia talked. Zora had never seen her so talkative before. She gushed about the sparklers she played with in her room, recounted the insect traits she noticed on her classmates, and mimed the firework sparks with flowery gestures and loud whooshes with her mouth. Her usual anxiety wasn’t there; she was so excited to speak that the words slurred past her lips like someone on their tenth bottle of wine.
You enjoyed yourself, didn't you?
Good on you, Emilia.
They all took turns engaging with her, the five of them travelling in an arrow formation: Marcus in front, Zora on the left, Cecilia on the right, and Julius in the back. Without Emilia noticing, they’d all surrounded her in the centre to make sure she’d be safe, but the formation also made it so she could talk to whoever she wanted incredibly easily. Zora recounted stories of the four of them playing with sparklers for the very first time several years ago, at Julius’ graduation ceremony. Marcus poked fun at Julius for having been scared of the sparklers back then. Julius stabbed back with similarly embarrassing tales, and Cecilia was… unsurprisingly, the most quiet of them all.
Because, without Emilia noticing, they’d finally entered the northern building, and it was carnage the likes of which Zora had never seen before.
The long, vast chambers on the first floor were completely slick with blood. Thick and cloying fumes of decay clung to the cold stone walls, and moonlight refracting through the enormous stained-glass windows cast dim, fractured colours across the hallways. There may have been carpets before—furniture, candelabras, paintings hung on walls, colourful flags and banners strung overhead—but the chambers of the first floor were ruined. Armies of men, women, and Magicicada Mages lay in grotesque, broken piles all over, and not a single one of them had identifiable features.
They climbed the first set of stairs they could find, heading up to the second floor while Marcus nudged the bodies out of their way.
The chambers on the second floor were a bit more hopeful, but just as chaotic. Dozens upon hundreds of human researchers still lay in bloody piles everywhere, but now carcasses of giant bugs accompanied them, massive forms collapsed in heaps of chitin and disjointed legs. Blood leaking from cracks in the ceiling was constant—drip, drip, drip of blood running down the cobbled walls, from corpse to floor. Julius had to walk forward to shield Emilia with a pocket parasol while Zora and Cecilia lingered in the back, letting Julius handle the distracting small talk.
By the time they climbed the second set of stairs to the third floor, Cecilia’s face was worryingly pale; Marcus didn’t slow down, of course, and neither did Julius, but Zora grabbed her hand just before she could step on a giant bug leg.
“... To charm and deceive a child is the strength of an actor, but for teachers who are without that talent, simply being yourself is good enough,” he said, voice soft as a whisper as he fixed her with a reassuring gaze. “It’s fine to look sick in front of me, you know. Marcus and Julius are strong men who grew up in troubled, terrible lands, so for better or worse, they’re used to massacres of this sort—meanwhile, we're arts teachers, and we don’t have blood on our palettes.”
Cecilia put a hand to her mouth, furrowing a brow as she tried not to throw up. “Neither of us are visual arts teachers. That analogy doesn't work here–”
“But it helps to know you're not alone in feeling sick, no?”
She paused. Julius was still whispering quietly to Emilia about the make of sparklers, and Marcus was being a diligent vanguard by making sure they weren't walking straight into a giant bug; the two of them had time to talk.
Cecilia could afford to gulp and let herself shiver in an uncharacteristic moment of weakness.
“I… find it hard to believe that ‘this’ is what a scared Zora looks like,” she whispered, shaking her head slowly. “You were much more of a scaredy cat back when we were kids. Remember how you used to hide behind me all the time whenever we snuck out of the dorm at night for tests of courage.”
“I remember no such thing.”
“You did. You were a sweet, adorable coward back then. Now all you’ve got is a sharp tongue, and… are you sure you’re still afraid?”
In response, he held up his other hand and showed it to her: that slight, subtle, but still very real shaking he couldn’t exactly show Emilia.
“I’m an arts teacher, too,” he murmured, “but behaviour precedes nature. I believe people who act brave can become brave, and I’m not a huge fan of being myself sometimes. Emilia’s not your kid, after all—what kind of teacher wants their kid to know how frightened they really are in the face of a giant bug?”
Cecilia pursed her lips. “So you don’t worry?”
“Worry?”
“What if mom isn't up on the fifth floor? What if that Magicicada Witch has already gotten what she wants out of the academy? What if–”
“Mom’s one of the very first Magicicada Mages in the entire world. If someone's protecting what Nona is looking for, it's going to be her, and you can be sure she's not going to croak that easily,” he said, cutting her off. “The fact that we aren't fighting off hordes of bugs right now means the Magicicada Mages probably killed off most of them. For all we know, there's a bunch of survivors taking shelter on the fifth floor, unsure of what's going on outside the northern building. It's just a race to see whether we or Nona will find them first, and we have home advantage here.”
“That’s not–”
“If you count only the things you can stand to lose, it’ll take away your ability to act,” he said, flicking her on the forehead and making her flinch. “If there’s something you want to achieve—something you want to be true—then that isn’t something that should fetter you. It must drive you forward, and that… is ‘fire’.”
Cecilia immediately stopped fidgeting, her expression morphing into a look of teasing playfulness.
“You’ve been thinking about how to explain that word to Emilia, huh?” she said, a small, smug smile rising onto her face. “How long have you been rehearsing that line for, hm? You’ve grown into quite the dependable teacher since you were a whole head shorter than me, haven’t you?”
He winced and tried to shy away as she started scrubbing his head. “I’ve always been dependable. I’m Lord Zora, the Thousand Tongue Mage of homeroom 2-A, and my kids will testify that I’m the most popular teacher this year.”
She snorted, a smile tugging on the corner of her eyes. “You won’t take me down. I’ve still got my youthful beauty on my side.”
“Even a painted butterfly eventually loses its colours to the wind. How old are you again?”
“One word to mom and I’ll have your salary cut.”
“I apologise. I wasn’t familiar with your strategies–”
Their ears perked again, and this time, all five of them snapped their heads to the left, staring out the columns of giant stained-glass windows.
It was faint, barely noticeable, but it was like moonlight just shimmered and then dimmed for a brief second.
Under normal circumstances, Zora would think a giant bug was flying outside, but he'd neither seen nor heard anything of the sort since he started looking up through the botanical garden’s glass ceiling. He wasn't lying when he told Cecilia the Magicicada Mages must've killed most of the bugs in the academy before succumbing to their wounds—the four of them had their work cut out for them.
So where was this sense of unease coming from?
…
They waited ten seconds, twenty seconds, backs pressed against the walls on the right before continuing their journey through the third floor.
The instant they did, moonlight to their left shimmered again, and this time, they caught a glimpse of the giant cactus peeking into the castle from outside.
… What even is that–
And two legs the size of small watchtowers tore through the windows, cleaving through stone and metal beams like scissor blades.