[Day 67 {week 8}] - Thursday - February 26, 0000 A.A

“YAAAHHHHHHH!!!”

When a horrifying scream of utter pain pierced through Velysium hall, people already began gearing up for what was to come. After over a month of intense training and discipline with Coach McConnell, it had become practically second nature to everyone. Whoever had been eating breakfast set them down and rushed for the equipment, the people talking and idling around followed suit.

Under the coach's direction, the bulk of the fighter went to the wall as preparation for a likely beetle raid after that scream. The rest, which included Coach McConnell, Officer Wheeler, the principal, Mr.Valko, and a few students, rushed to the source of the noise….in the nurse's office.

“What's going on here!” said the coach as he swung open the door, sword at the ready for any invading beetles. But what he saw instead made him and the entourage he came with pause with a perplexed look on their faces.

“What the F*CK?” Leo finally said as they witnessed the screaming and crying Ms.Stillwater as she tried her best not to thrash about, which was a futile endeavor as many of the medical students had to restrain her from moving. The Nurse was over her with wide eyes as she did her best to close the fairly deep wound on Ms. Stillwater's forearm.

Everyone watched as the wound began to stitch itself close thanks to the nurse's efforts only causing Ms.Stillwater to scream even louder. “Stop!” She cried,” Please stop!” she managed to sob out followed by another scream of pain.

The Nurse complied with a haunted look on her face. Wonder if she may have done something wrong to cause such a horrible reaction to closing the wound.

“What’s happening?” Asked the Principal as she looked at the, most likely traumatized, Ms. Stillwater who was sobbing painfully as Heather tried to comfort her. A few of the other students were trying to at least bandage the still open wound, but Ms.Stillwater wouldn’t let them, crying out every time someone touched the area around the open wound.

“I-I-I don’t know!” Said the nurse unable to take her eyes off of Mrs.Stillwater,” she was fine when I started closing the wound, she said the pain was bearable until she went ballistic.”

“Tell us what happened in sequence.” Ordered Coach McConnell as the Nurse nodded before she began elaborating on the situation. “We had just finished another test with some beetle flesh and have….concluded that the more d-degraded the organic matter is the easier it is to mold. W-We’ve never tested this on anything……a-alive so we had no idea the difference between that and something dead. Mrs. Stillwater volunteered to be the test subject and c-cut herself to have us test it.” At this point, the nurse was rubbing her hands together, nervously wondering if Mrs. Stillwater was alright,” When I began closing the wound with my magic everything was fine until I noticed she was tensing up a little, so I stopped and asked what was wrong. She said it was getting more painful the longer I did it but told me to continue. After about 30 seconds she started screaming …and you know the rest……” Silence, save for Mrs. Stillwaters sobbing, took over the room as the Nurse Finished Explaining what had happened.

Breaking said Silence Leo speaks out the words on a few people’s minds,” If that's how I’m gonna be every time someone uses healing magic I think I’ll take my chances with the normal way.”

“Leo! Shut up!” Hissed Callie!,” Read the room!”

“Why are y’all still here?” Asked the Coach whirling around to face the people that had come with him,” I hear Beetles coming! To the barricades with all of You! We have work to do!” he said, ushering every out of the Nurse's room.

Before he left he turned back to the nurse,” Don’t mind Leo. Take care of Stillwater, and no more live tests till this is over.” He said, causing both the nurse and the student in the room to nod rapidly.

Taking one more look at the miserable adult sobbing her soul out, Coach McConnell left the room, rushing to the first-floor barricade as a raid began.

~~~~~~~~(17:21 PM)~~~~~~~~

It took 2 hours for the beetle raid to end and about the same to clean up the barricades and refuse it back together with magic, saving a lot of resources in the process.

The raid this time had consisted of a large number of Megas, which meant a lot more injuries than usual during these raids after they began using Sev and Magic. There were even a few broken bones here and there but at least no one died, that was what counts.

Right after that, all of the adults shuffled into the nurse's room after she and some students finished patching up some of the more serious injuries. Grabbing a chair and sitting down they began to address the issue that had happened in the morning, thankfully with a recovered Mrs. Stillwater.

“So.” Began Mr. Val,” I just wanted to say that test this on yourself was a damned stupid thing to do.” causing Ms. Stillwater to wince.

“Val please.” Said the Principal not wanting blames getting thrown around.

“No! Hear me out, there are scavenging creatures that like to roam around where we leave the beetle corpse so that they take them and drag them wherever it is they go. If you want to test things on a live subject ask someone to catch one of those! Testing it on yourself was an Idiotic move!”

“Don’t you think I know that!” snapped Ms. Stillwater,” we just don’t have that kind of time. How long do you think it would have taken to catch one of those creatures?!”

“Sure, but now look at the consequences of those actions. Multiple of the students are hurt and don’t give me any BS about the heightened healing factor, which still does not stop the issue that some of them have lost a lot of blood, and that still takes a lot of time to regenerate.” Countered Mr. Val.

“I agree.” Said Mrs. Gibson scornfully,” you should have at least told us you were doing this. So we would be prepared if anything happened.”

“Alright Alright!’ Said the principal,” this is not the time for accusations. We are in a crunch right now, and from the look of things, there are a lot more Megas in the hive now, which means we don’t have a lot of time to eradicate the beetle before they eradicate us. So can we stop arguing with each other and solve this problem with the healing magic and be done with it.”

The hushed silence was enough confirmation to the principal to get on with why they were all gathered for this meeting. “Ms. Stillwater, What was the problem with the healing?”

Everyone noticed the shudder in Ms. Stillwater’s frame as the memory of the events came back to her,” I - I think it was just painful. Just really, really, really….” she said pausing as she took in a breath,”....painful. It's like having thousands of sewing machines knitting your skin together, all the while someone was using a flamethrower on it. It was bad, Like really bad.” She said, stressing just how painful the experience was.

“So, you're fine? did the wound heal correctly? No problems?” Asked Mr. Valko.

“No, I think the magic was doing everything correctly, we just need to figure out why it hurts so much. I think other than mild PTSD I’m fine.” Respond Ms. Stillwater.

“Imagine if it had been a bigger wound…” Said one of the medical students who were standing on the side.

“You're right.” Said Mr. Val,” I might get worse the bigger the wound, don’t think we should test that though.” All the adults unanimously agreed not to try it on bigger wounds until they found a way to calm the pain.

“You know what,” Said Mr. Valko, grinning,” if it's keeping the pain to a menial I might have the perfect solution or two.”

“And that is?” Asked Coach McConnell.

“Well, the first one is Ms. Booth can try to control the nerves so that ---” before he could continue the Nurse stood up, immediately disagreeing with the idea,” Don’t even go there!”

“.....alright, let me get one of my students right quick.” Said Mr. Valko standing up and rushing out of the door.

~~~~~~~

“So explain to me why we didn’t know of this before?” asked the Principal as Ms. Stillwater was being strapped to one of the beds that were salvaged from the nurse’s office.

“You didn’t ask.” Said Mr. Valko next to a very nervous Sloane Rachels.

To his words, the principal noted down to check up on what the magisterium was doing up in their assigned space because obviously, they didn’t seem to be sharing everything they were learning.

“Ms. Stillwater, are you sure you don’t want me to take your place?” asked officer Wheeler, full of worry.

“No no… I'm fine, I got this.” She said, as reassuring as she possibly could, which didn’t convince officer wheeler at all.

“Get going with it.” Ms. Stillwater said, to which Mr. Valko nudged Sloane forward.

The teen placed her hand on Ms. Stillwater’s head nervously before saying,” you have to be willing for it to work, so relax.” With that Ms, Stillwater closed her eyes as Sloane got to work, letting her magic do its thing, and soon Ms. Stillwater was put into a deep sleep, a state much like anesthesia.

“Ok.” Said Sloane,” she is asleep.”

“Ms. Booth, go for it.” Said the Principal.

With a nod, the nurse began to heal the newly reopened wound on Ms. Stillwater’s arm. She did so slowly watching the wound close as well as letting the sensory feeling of what her magic was doing flow to her. After about a minute or so, the wound was completely closed as it had never been there in the first place. “I think that worked?” Said the Nurse unsure if Ms. Stillwater was ok.

Sloane let go of Ms. Stillwater’s head, who woke up immediately from her sleep,” Whats hap---Aahh----” Ms. Stillwater's scream was cut short as Sloane placed her hand back on her head and put her to sleep again, a shocked expression on her face.

“Um…what do I do?!” Asked Sloane looking at the equally surprised adults.

“Uh…keep her asleep for a while, we'll see what happens in like 5 minutes,” said Mr. Valko.

“ I used up a lot of magic before coming here, I can only hold it for 2 minutes…..” Said Sloane.

“Ah, hold on, let me transfer some of mine to you.” Said Mr. Valko.

The experiment was a success. Ms. Stillwater woke after 5 minutes and didn’t feel much of anything after that. Joy spread amongst the people in the room as they figured out an effective way to heal themselves. Still, before it could be used in full, the principal had Sloane teach the nurses group how to put people to sleep. To add to that the Nurse wanted at least 3 more days to have her crew practice molding organic matter since doing so with live flesh is astronomically different from doing so with non-live ones.

All in all the news exited the survivors in Velysium hall, some of which could wait to get some of their deeper injuries closed. And before another argument erupted for names, the Nurse’s crew decided to name themselves the Order of Healing saints.

[Day 72 {week 9}] - Sunday - February 31, 0000 A.A

The best practice was sometimes just doing the work.

After 3 more days of perfecting their craft, along with the help of Sloane to teach them how she was putting people to sleep, the Healers began to close the wound that had yet to heal on their own from the last beetle raid.

They started with the more serious injuries so that by the time they got to the smaller ones, they would have naturally closed on their own. Those with broken bones however had to be left alone. Their injury was more serious than just a cut or a bruise, so the nurse did not want to mess with it, for fear of fusing the bone the wrong way, causing deformation. However, she did do her best to take out the bone fragments from the wound. And with the help of magic, she could feel around for the fragment that shouldn’t be.

During this time the nurse had noticed there was a disparity in how fast she could heal someone, with others in her crew reporting the same thing. Essentially when they healed an injury on someone and later tried to heal a similar injury on someone else, one would use more mana than the other, which didn’t make sense to the nurse and the other healers as the injuries were the same.

“Oh! Don’t worry about that, it's just the magic signals interfering with each other,” said Sloane when asked about the problem.

“Magic Signals?” said Raymond in confusion. He was one of the juniors that had been allowed to use molding to heal people.

“Yeah, we just call it that, we are not really sure if it's a signal at all. It's like an identifier to your magic, and it's unique to everyone. The resistance you encounter when healing people is your magic signal and the patients interfering with each other. Sometimes they can be compatible, which is why it’s easier to heal some injuries than others, other times they could be incompatible which causes more mana to be used up. The Magisterium discovered this since we work together a lot so it was easy to notice when someone’s magic would interfere with the whole project by being incompatible.”

“That would have been nice to know. How do we fix it?” asked the nurse, to which Sloane shrugged,” the best way we’ve found is to just force it.

~~~~~~~~(25:00 PM)~~~~~~~~

Riken Valko splashed some water on his face to wake himself up.

He sighed in exhaustion and mild discomfort from his overloaded mana pathway. He had siphoned a lot more magic than he would have liked to on this day, Some of which had been his own, others which had not. All of that combined was taking its toll and Riken really needed to take a nap. But he couldn’t right now…not without having some food first.

‘Just a little while long Riken.’ he thought,’ after some food, you can finally go take a nap and hope nothing too disastrous happens today.’

With another sigh, he looked at himself in the mirror and couldn’t help but admire all that this situation had done for them. True, the deaths were less than acceptable, and the fact that they were technically trapped within the school even more so. But instead of growing older from all the stress, he was getting younger. Days after he first touched on magic he had noticed how he was getting fewer and fewer wrinkles compared to before. Now being 42, he looked just as he had when he was 25. Skin devoid of the signs of age.

It wasn’t just him either, the other adults had it too after unlocking their magic. Coach McConnell, the oldest amongst them at 64 had been the most noticeable change. He had always been ripped, but age had been degrading him, no he was damn better, his age stopping just in the 20s much like Riken’s own.

The magisterium figured out what was the cause, and it was the subtle sheet of ambient energy that constantly covered each individual. This sheet seems to be affecting them in ways they couldn’t understand. Its functions seemed to be heightened by the amount of magic and Sev in them.

Like many others, it also led to Riken hoping his old parents had discovered the ability and were getting younger much like himself. However he could be sure, they had only discovered them by pure luck and accident. Still, If they had managed to do it, Riken hoped other people had as well and were passing it on to everyone to increase the chances of survival, but knowing human nature, that was far-fetched.

Sighing for the 3rd time in just a minute, Riken pulled off the drain cap in the sink he had been using, letting the minimal amount of water he had poured from the bucket next to him drain away. Grabbing said bucket, Riken set it by the door with the others, before leaving the men's restroom on the second floor. Immediately he made his way to the Magisterium's room where another meeting was in order, called in by Mr. Val as he had something to show. Something Riken had already seen before.

Passing through the door, he noted that all the adults were already here, with some of the Magisterium members, which he had sent off to get food, still there, Looking over at them Mr. Valko asked,” aren’t y’all supposed to be done for dinner.”

Josiah, Halima, and Harry were about to respond, when Mr. Val answered for them,” we let them stay. They tell us that you and Malcolm are exhausted and may pass out at any moment, so having more wizards here may help for what I’m about to show.”

“Makes me wonder what y’all have been up to up here.” Said the Principal with a suspicious look in her eye.

Riken smiled dismissively at the look he was receiving. The principal worried too much, she had already confronted them a day ago, asking to know everything they’ve learned so far and he had truthfully given it all. Riken could understand though. The Principal just didn’t want a repeat of Haron with an underhanded grab of power from having control of something everyone else didn’t have much of, and using it to take over their group.

“I assure you, it all just been practice and messing around with random elements we find. We’ve found some pretty good elements to help us fight off the Beetles thanks to it.” Replied Riken, which seemed to satisfy the Principal for the moment.

“That's great, but can we get on with this? I need some food before I pass out too. I had a long day molding and fusing things together.” Said Mr. Glenn.

“Right, Mr. Val, take it away.” Said the Principal.

“Ok, so you all know I’ve kind of been secluded from the group, up in my classroom alone for a while now, right.” Said Mr. Val, to which multiple conformations rang through the room. “ And as I told everyone, apart from the student, I’ve been busy studying some of the plants, the beetle corpses, and building more Molotovs,” he says, receiving nods from around the room.

“So, using some of the chemicals I already had, along with some I extracted from the plants, as well as some beetle blood, I managed to make this.” Said Mr. Val, pulling out a cylindrical object from his lab coat.

The object was cast in Mega beetle chitin and had a small rope extending from its top. It looks like a ……. “ Is that a dynamite?” Asked Mrs. Perry.

“Well, I guess you could call it that. I used everything I could to make this bomb. I’ve tested it before and I wanted to show everyone here.” With that, Mr. Val looked over to Riken, who inturned waved over Malcolm and the student to help him make a suitable barrier to test the bomb.

Malcolm focused on coating a section of the floor, while Riken created the dome. The students helped out wherever they could, mostly siphoning the magic themselves to allow the adults some breathing space.

When it was done. Riken gave Mr. Val the signal, and much like they've rehearsed hours prior, Mr. Vall lit the end of the bomb and tossed it into the barrier. The wizards had set it so that things could go it, but nothing could come out, which included the loud explosion as the dome was engulfed in the fire.

“As you can see, it packs quite as much of a punch as a fireball.” Said Riken as he massaged his temple, trying to get rid of the migraine that was forming,” it would be very helpful in fighting the beetles.”

The principal looked happy as she wrote down something on that clipboard of hers. Coach McConnell was nodding with satisfaction at the results. The rest of the people in the room were quite surprised as well, more so by the fact, that Mr. Val had made a bomb using materials that appeared after Armageddon.

“It's a little underwhelming with what we can do with magic and all, but ----” before Mr. Val could continue, the Principal interrupted him saying,” it's not underwhelming, the Wizards can’t continuously tose fireballs everywhere, having these bombs which are about the same as the average fireball, it would give them time to rest and maybe be even work some different magic.”

“That’s true, there are other spells that we’ve made that need a lot of time to be put together, so this is actually very helpful.” Agreed Riken.

“More importantly, how much of this have you made?” Asked Coach McConnell.

“Oh there are about 50 right now, but I’m preparing more of them, some of the material needs some cooking for a while.” Responded Mr. Val, happy with the reaction to his new bomb.

“I think I’ll have some of the students go help you make more faster, so we can stock up on them.” Said the Principal,” Also what's wrong Josiah, you seem a little fidgety for a while now?” She said as all eyes turned to him.

“Can I name the group?” Josiah asked shyly.

Everyone rolled their eyes and groaned. They did not need another argument over the name of a group, and the 2 other teens in the room looked like they were about the say something to Josiah's remarks but Mr. Val beat them to it. “ No, I already got a name so that we don’t get another argument over it. I went with Alchemisterium.” He said with a smile as Josiah beamed with joy at such a similar name to what he was thinking off.

“And that spells the end of your stay here.” Says Coach McConnell as he opens the door to the room,” I think demonstrations are over, go get some dinner we will be down soon.” And with that 3 sulking students made their way out of the Magisterium’s room.

“Now that they are gone.” Said Coach McConnell as he shut the door,” I have to say something.” He said with a gleam in his eye that told Riken he was not going to sleep too well tonight.

~~~~~~~~(25:50 PM)~~~~~~~~

When the adults got down for dinner, the student noted that Mrs.Gibson had been crying. Several of the adults also seemed on edge and fairly disturbed by something.

All of them ate their dinner in silence, some of whom seemed to be out of it and on autopilot, Scooping a spoonful of beetle soup with almost no hesitation compared to all the previous nights. It was putting the rest of the survivors on edge as they started to wonder what that last meeting had been about.

When dinner finished, instead of heading off to practice their Sev or Magic, or even just sleep for those not on guard duty yet, they were told to wait for an announcement the Principal had to make.

“Alright, this is going to be quick and you will all get to go on with your night soon.” She said, taking in a breath, she looked very tired,” In our meeting today. We have decided it is finally time to take action against the hive.”

Silence could be heard all over Velysium hall as the students began to understand why the adults were acting differently.

In that period of shock, the power finally decided to come back on as the lights sprang back to life.