~~~~~~~~(16:45PM)~~~~~~~~

Upon entering through the doors and into the hallway leading to the boys' gym, Team Alpha was assaulted mainly by normal and Mega beetles. Even so, their numbers seemed drastically reduced, less so than even a raid.

At the front of the team, Officer Fitzpatrick led the advance into the hall with the other shield wielders. They alone were more than enough at this point to deal with the number of belts coming their way. The archers and wizards had to occasionally help them out with a few arrows and spells, but overall the advance into the hallway went smoothly……too smoothly.

“Damn.” began Leo,” You would think there would be a lot more beetles protecting the entrance to their queens room.”

“You’re right. This is a little weird.” Responded Niko.

“Why the hell are yall complaining fo!” Began Ranzer,” That's less beetles that we would need to kill so that's a win in my book.”

“I guess…” Replied Niko, still with a bit of doubt about the whole situation.

“Since y'all like talking so much, why don’t you clean out that locker room we’re approaching.” Ordered the coach, earning nods from the 3 of them.” Zane, Josiah, Rosemary, Irene, and Owen would join you.”

Hearing his name being called Owen almost asked what he had done to join the other, only for Irene to jab him in the side, less he irritated the coach. “Just do it!” she whispered in his ear, to which he grumbled but followed their little group as they made their way to the left side of the formation.

When the team passed by the Locker room, Niko, Ranzer, Leo, Zane, Josiah, Rosemary, Irene, and Owen all went inside the locker room to clear it out in case of any beetles.

Making their way in, Zane and Ranzer at the Front. They went through the first set of double doors, ignored the dry blood splattered on the floor, and went through the second.

The first locker room was a mess. Benches and racks were tossed about everywhere, the lockers dented and covered with blood. Some of the lights had been dislodged from the ceiling, while others flicked on their broken frames. The floor was painted red, with dried blood trails leading into a hole big enough for normal beetles to crawl through.

“Well, this is….a mess.” Said Leo, to which the rest of the people in the group nodded. By this point, they had seen so much damn blood and gore, that this was nothing but a drop of water to them. It was still disgusting and smelled awful, but at least they wouldn’t start vomiting and freeze in fear like before.

Josiah and Rosemary quickly got to work closing the hole in front of them, by using all the rubble that was tossed about the room. The rest of them stood around bored out of their mind before they moved on to the second locker room connected to this one.

The second and third locker rooms were all relatively the same as the first. A bloody mess, only lacking the hole. It was the fourth locker room that came with a surprise.

This locker room was just as messy as the others, this time with a hole in one of the shower stalls. However, before they could charge in, they spotted multiple beetles. All of which were still as a rock, only twitching ever so slightly.

“Are they asleep?” Whispered Josiah to the other.

“These things sleep?” Leo added,” I mean, sure they're alive but I just thought they would work themselves to death.”

“Or to the point of exhaustion.” Joined Ranzer

“Whatever they’re doing, let's just kill them and join the others back outside.” said Zane, raising his glaive,” Let’s give them a bit of a surprise attack.”

There were just around 23 beetles resting in this locker room. And with 8 people here, despite being outnumbered, the odds were still in their favor.

Josiah and Rosemary set up a barrier in front of them, as the 2 archers, Owen and Irene Let loose two exploding arrows at the beetles.

When the blast settled, the beetles were up and darting about in confusion, still muddled after the rude awakening. The blast itself had taken out more than half of these beetles, who became easy picking for the rest of the warriors.

It did not take long for them to clear the beetle out while Josiah and Rosemary closed the hole in the shower stalls.

“Finally done.” Said Owen with a sigh,” Let’s join up with the rest.’ he said as he turned to head out through the fourth locker room exit.

“Wait, don’t go through there!” Niko shouted, stopping Owen in his tracks.

“Owen! We have no idea if everyone else had made it to this door yet, we could walk right out into a large group of beetles,” said Irene, walking up to the man and slightly slapping the back of his head.

“Ow!” Said Owen sarcastically, “Fine let’s head back the way we came.” He said heading back to the first locker room entrance.

All was well for them until they walked out into the hallway. Alpha was all the way ahead, however, the order they had entered was broken as students began attacking at seemingly nothing. Coach McConnell and Officer Fitzpatrick were trying their best to keep order. Focusing on the shield wielders and having them keep pushing back the beetles that were still attacking them.

“What the hell is happening!” Screams Josiah as he and the other rush over to the battle.

“Be careful!” Shouts Emelia, with an uncharacteristic look of panic on her face as she searches for something on the ceiling and the walls. Though to them, nothing was there. “There are invisible beetles in the hall!”

The approaching group took a second to comprehend what she had just said as the blood drained from their faces. Then they got their weapons at the ready before walking vigilantly the rest of the way.

“AHHH!”

Then a shrill scream erupted from the front of the battle. Homer had been grabbed by something on the ceiling. Picked up cleanly from the group, a green gooey substance sprayed onto him which hardened quickly, immobilizing the man. Whatever had done this didn’t just stay idle while multiple people below it tried to kill it. No, it screeched and dashed away with Homer in its invisible clutches, dodging the myriad of arrows and spells coming for it.

“Stop that! Your spells could hit him!” Said the Coach,” get back into formation! Wizard, cover us with a shield!” he ordered.

“But sir! They're going to kill him!” Shouted someone in the crowd.

“And if you’d shot, he’d have died too, plus, if you managed to kill whatever that was, he would’ve fallen right into that group of beetles. They would have shredded him to pieces!” Said the coach,” Focus on this first! We’ll get him back!”

The order had still not been restored, and by the time the wizards had completed forming the shield with Josiah and the rest of his team in it, 7 others were snagged clear from their group. They’ve only managed to get 3 of those down, killing the perpetrators in the process.

The invisible beetle was smaller than even the normal ones. However, its chitin plated stood in between a Mega’s and a Giga’s natural protection. It also lacked the feelers on its chin. But making up for that was a pair of scythe-like hook appendages that came out just in front of their first pair of legs. At had used these new appendages to grab people, injuring them in the process.

When order had been restored, people finally had the time to calm down and try to find and kill as many of the Invisible beetles as they could.

Emelia was less focused on the battle in front of them and more so on the ceiling and the surrounding area, in fact, it wasn’t only her, but most of the archers. Though the Invisible beetles were invisible, there was a flaw in their ability to do so. Their Invisibility was only like a coating, so as they passed over things like windows, door frames, or the folds between the ceiling and wall, there was a distortion. That distortion gave them away. But one needs to be paying very close attention to find them, else they would miss it entirely.

‘There.’, though Emilia as she spots another distortion as the beetle transitions from the wall to the ceiling. Nocking an arrow into her dow, she raised ii and aimed. After pouring some sev into the arrow, but not enough to make an exploding one, she let it loose. It travels strong and true, the sev sharpening its edge further as it sliced through the air.

The beetle, too focused on trying to get a spearman at the edge of the formation, despite the shield, failed to notice the arrow and was impaled on the side. Its concentration broke, it screeched and dropped to the floor, now visible to everyone. The spearman it had been after startled, before giving it the finishing blow, putting an end to its misery.

This went on for a while until they finished off the beetles in the hall and took a break to calm down further and recover their energy. Still, everyone was alert in case some sneaky invisible beetle decided to steal someone from their group.

It was unknown what had happened to the 5 that had been taken but people were already guessing that they may have been killed already, which was a drastic blow to morale.

~~~~~~~~(17:32PM)~~~~~~~~

“Sorry about that McConnel.” Said the Principal after team Omega cleared their first hallway,” There were a lot of beetles over here. And a massive hole the wizards are currently closing to get to the door before any more beetles come through it. Then there was…the invisible beetles who carried off 9 people….that was harmful to watch.”

The Walkie talkie crackled a bit as the Coach’s voice came through,” That was why I was contacting you in the first place. 8 of them got taken, but we managed to take 3 back and break them out of that damned goo, no idea if the rest are even alive.” He responded, a trace of sadness clear in his voice.

Principal Salinas sighed deeply as more stress piled into her. ‘That made 14 dead.’ she thought, wondering what she was going to tell their parents if most of them were even alive. Sometimes she even wondered why she tried so hard. Wondering if it was just better to leave and go try and find her husband, and her little boy. But then there were the dangers she most definitely won’t survive alone lurking outside, then her responsibility as the principal, and finally the rage at what Haron had done. She did not want to go down the same route as Haron, forsaking her student for her own goals.

“Principal?” called out Coach McConnel through the communication.

“Sorry.” Replied the Principal, wiping some tears away,” Just lost in thought. We’re just about ready to go off into the girls' gym.”

“Alright.” Said the Coach, before adding,” Don’t push yourself.”

“I won’t.” She replied, cutting the link.

Getting across the hole in the hallway was easy. Getting into the girls' gym was a bit of a chore. The girls' hallway was more damaged than the boys. Covered with cracks and even a few collapsed walls, one of which had a car right in it……right in front of the door. So debris from the collapsed wall and ceiling blocked the door to the girls' gym. So they needed to move that out of the way to reach their goal.

Team Omega didn’t only have to watch out for invisible beetles but also watch the hole in the wall for any other funny creature that decided to take its chances with them.

“Principal Salinas!” Called Callie, gaining the principal's attention.” we're ready!”

Hearing this, the principal put the conversion she was having with Mr.Wheeler on the possible fates of the kidnapped students on hold before they both headed for the now cleared doors.

“I’ll see what we're dealing with.” Said Officer Wheeler, passing through the path people made for him to reach the door. From there, he opened it slightly and peeked into the remainder of the gym.

“Left wall is demolished, the semi-dead center of the room no doubt.” he said quietly.,” the entire gym is badly damaged. There are 4 - no 7 holes. None seem big enough for Giga’s to pass through though.”

“And the beetles?” asked the Principal, as she kneeled by,” how many are we looking at?”

“Can’t tell entirely.” Replied Officer Wheeler,” but from what I can see, we have Normals, Megas, and the invisible kind.”

“Wait? How can you tell that?” asked Richy.

“Most are still and look asleep.” Said Officer Wheeler,” there are only a few moving about and crawling back into the hole.”

“Good, we can surprise them before they can organize to attack them.” Said the Principal standing up. ”Wizard, prepare your spells. Archer charges your arrows. On my signal, Wheeler, you open the door.”

The team then re-adjusted to fit the plan, letting the wizards and the archers forward. As they readied their attack, the principal received a call from McConnell that they were moving on to the second hallway and we’ll wait for them before entering the Gymnasium.

“Get ready!” Ordered the Principal as she put the device back to the side,” Now!” She called.

Officer Wheeler and Callie pulled both doors wide open as a barrage of attacks were sent flying into the room. Setting off a bast, which startled the beetles, killing many more in the process.

“Archer! Wizards, focus on killing the ones that can turn invisible first!” Said the Principal as she jumped in on the fight that had begun with a mega.

The beetles, much like humans, take a few seconds to wake fully, so when team Omega ambushed them as they slept. They were quickly slaughtered before any of them could react properly. Only some of the already awake Megas put up any resistance. The rest were killed quickly.

Then a problem arose when Maya, one of the wizards, was sprayed by an invisible beetle in the face, the substance hardening quickly and cutting her air supply as she began to choke.

Maya collapsed on the floor, flopping around frantically, as she and a few other wizards began trying to remove it, but were failing horribly.

“It's not working!!” Panicked Harry as he tried to mold the substance out of the way with magic, only for his mana to be sapped away.

“What's not working!” cried the Principal as she made her way towards the commotion, while Coach Wheeler and a few others dealt with the Invisible beetles hiding high up on the ceiling.

“Our magic!” replied Lin, in just as much of a panic as the rest of the wizard,” whatever this thing is, it's absorbing it! We can’t remove it!”

Callie then tried to cut it away with the tip of her spear, aglow and vibrating with Sev, only for it to be sapped and absorbed by the substance wrapped around Maya’s head.

Horror spread as they helplessly tried to remove it. Maya began to move less and less, as the Principal grabbed her Walkie Talkie and contacted team Alpha, remembering that the coach had been able to remove the substance.

“McConnell! Come in! Quick!” Called the principal in a frantic panic.

“What! What happened!?” Asked the Coach, hearing the distress in the principal's voice.

“The green slime thing, the invisible beetles shots out, how do you remove it! Maya's suffocating!” She cried.

“NOO! Maya! Stay with us!” Screamed Heather as Maya started to go limp.

“Bleach! Mr. Val used Bleach! Find some bleach! There should be some in every janitor's closet!” Came the coach's voice.

The Principal just dropped the device and rushed out of the Girls' gym doors, zooming by other students who were rushing for the janitor's closet back out in the hall, right next to the gym's entrances. She busted open the janitor's closet with a Sev empowered punch. She then frantically tossed things away and out of the room before finding the bottle she was looking for. With the bleach in hand, she rushed back into the gym, practically flying with each sev empowered stride, before sliding to a halt on her knees by Maya who was just about to pass out.

The Principal didn’t bother opening the bottle of bleach the normal way and ripped the top right off. Before dumping its contents on the back of Maya's head.

Within seconds, the bleach melted the hardened substance on the back of Maya’s head, allowing them to pull the rest off her like a helmet. Chest heaving up and down, heart-pounding, Maya gasped and coughed for air.

After the last of the substance was gone and there was enough air in her system, she began crying and hugged the principal, who hugged her back in tears herself.

Everyone sighed in relief as well before joining in with the hug and crying themselves.

~~~~~~~~(18:00PM)~~~~~~~~

Homer was uncomfortable as heck. The Invisible beetle had, thankfully, not killed him on the spot. Instead, it had taken a quick trip outside the school and then into a hole on the side of the gymnasium.

When he’d first realized where he was headed, he thought he was about to be fed to the queen, but upon entry, he saw that the queen was not in there like they were expecting, but instead there were piles and piles of food. A bunch of dead creatures tossed in bloody piles, mixed in with some trapped ones. Other piles were solely for the creatures strapped by the hardened goo, some of them alive, others on the verge of death.

The beetle dropped him on some pile of other trapped creatures. There were a lot of them, from a myriad of different species. Species he knew for sure had never existed back on earth, along with a few dinosaurs.

The largest amount consisted of big grey armless t-rex-like creatures that might have stood even taller than a Giga at 9ft. their mouth was huge and lined with very dangerous-looking teeth. Their eyes are only a couple of centimeters from their mouths on both sides of their long head, their nose just a bit further in front of that. There were 28 of these huge creatures trapped in the hardened goo. Then 17 smaller versions of them which Homer guessed were their kids.

‘Did the beetles catch a whale pack of these things?’ Homer thought as he inspected the pile he was in. Of the 28 adults, only 14 were still alive but looked starved. Homer could see their bones showing through their skin. Much of the dead ones had died after being encased completely in the hardened goo, while some had died of hunger. The children had a similar situation, but with only 2 out of the 17 still hanging on to life.

Homer had been laid right at the top of this mound of creatures, his head right next to one of the big ones' mouths. Homer gulped as he looked the creature in the eye. The creature was also staring at him intently and Homer noticed the large scar across its eyes. It didn’t take long for the thing to lose interest in him, tilting its head back into a comfortable position and going back to sleep. Like most creatures, it had given up on living, and even if Homer was close enough for it to bite its head off, a bit of food wouldn’t have changed anything.

Putting aside the trapped creatures, Homer focused more on his dire predicament. The folds that were used to split the gymnasium into thirds were torn down. There were 3 holes, 2 big enough for a Giga, but the final one, near the bleacher, was huge, big enough for something much, MUCH bigger. As for the beetle in the room, the most were just the Normal kind, munching on the unpacked food. When they were full they bragged the dead carcasses or trapped creatures with them down the largest hole. The Megas took to the bigger creatures, too massive for the normal ones to pull, like the triceratops thing one was dragging. Then there were 4 Gigas standing still and guarding the room. Some of the live and trapped creatures gave one final struggle as they were dragged into the hole, while others just let it happen.

It was freaking horrible and Homer wanted to cry. The laws of the jungle were a little too much for him, but being nauseated from his Magic and Sev being sapped away by the hardened goo, no tears came.

As time went by, the invisible beetle came by with creature after creature, many small, but some dragged some of the bigger ones. All of which were struggling and trying to come loose. As they were dropped into a pile, their noise attacked beetles who immediately grabbed them and took them into the hole. This made Homer realize that making noise made you die faster in this situation.

“Let go of me!!” Came a scream from the outside as an invisible beetle came through the hole in the side of the Gymnasium and tossed Mariel, from his group into his pile. ”Ow!” She screamed,” Asshole, unglue me and see what happens!” She shouted in confused rage.

“Shush!” Hissed Homer from the top of the pile, snapping Mariel’s attention to them,” You'll die faster if you make noise!”

“Homer! You're alive!” She shouted despite his warning,” we thought you were---” she was then caught off when a beetle screeched and headed their way. As the beetle approached, one of the little gray rexes began winning loudly, causing it to make a beeline for it instead and begin dragging it away, to which it began to give a weak roar in protest.

A bigger rex close to it roared and chomped the beetle's side causing it to screech in pain. This attached the attention of a Giga and a few other beetles who flocked to their pile.

‘Ah, shit…’ thought Homer in fear as he watched the better come over.

The big gray rex fought for the little one, with every last being of energy it had. The Giga, though, took a few minutes to stab the gray rex until it died. With its death, the gray rex had succeeded in diverting attention from the little one as the mega pulled its body from the bottom of the pile, dragging it off into the biggest hole.

With it gone, the pile tumbled, causing Homer to slide to the floor, with the head of the grey rex he had a staring contest with right on top of his chest. The creature was awake again, it lifted its head to look at what was going on but then slammed it back down, doing nothing to stop the beetles from dragging the body of one of its brethren.

The wind knocked out from his chest when the creature slammed back down on him, Homer coughed lightly, before looking around for Mariel. He found her still next to the little rex which had calmed down a little and was currently busing trying to munch the harder goo with mild success.

Mariel looked back at him in fear and was close to hyperventilating. It was then that the invisible beetle returned with 3 more people from their team…..all very much dead as the goo had hardened on the top half of their bodies, cutting them from oxygen.

That was the last straw and both Mariel and Homer began sobbing. Noises like this were somewhat overlooked by the beetles as there were plenty of other creatures groaning in pain and discomfort with they ignored.

As time passed by Homer noticed that there were other live people in the room. Some from Team Omega looked just as terrified as Mariel and himself. There were even people who looked to have been here for a long while, some in military fatigues who looked starved and hungry. Homer wondered how long these people had been here.

It took time for the people Homer was waiting for to come. He was relieved to see a single stern stare peaking through the side of the door that was unblocked by a pile of carcasses.