“Nel, Eshya, Vii!” I cry out, as the battle starts overhead. They quickly gather around me, gripping tight to their practice weapons which are nothing much more than blunt wooden sticks.

Our teacher leads the counter charge against the bug-like enemies that flood the skies above town. While she floats, they walk upon the air, charging in tight formations. Red rebuffs them, attacking from below with reinforcements that come charging from the barracks around us. Some fly up, and some run into the sky as if climbing a tall slope. Others, fire arrows or magics to support Red and the others in the sky.

Most of the furred townspeople stay earthbound, running about grabbing weapons and forming gangs that cautiously watch the skies and streets.

The invading creatures seem much like insects, six segmented legs, sickle-like arms, and body split between a large hanging abdomen, a thick armoured thorax, and a large head with tall antennae flicking back and forth. Their black exoskeleton is covered in forged armours, made of metals, leathers, and chitinous shell, painted and stained with bright colours.

They aren’t even near to humanoid, yet they have all the tell-tale signs of intelligence. From the armour, forged and fitted, to the complex magics that they summon and throw down upon the town.

“Give in and die, pitiful creatures! Our great mother will consume all!”

Though, I think it may be the taunts that really give away their advanced intelligence.

“Fuck your great mother!” Red spits as she throws a knife at the creature.

“What did you say about our mother?!” The enemy army grow agitated at her words, standing frozen on air as they turn to her. Some even turn away from their own battles, injured or slain just so that they can glare at her.

“Oh, shit.” The enemy converge on her in an instant, their formations and tactics all thrown to the wind as they cry in outrage. She slides past their reaching blades and dodges the magic spikes they launch at her.

“What happens to us if she dies?” I ask, watching the violent air show.

“We get eaten by their great mother?” Vii suggests.

“I mean what if Red dies but our side wins?” I ask, watching as corpses rain from the sky, “It sounds a bit fucked up, but I think she’s the only reason we’re still alive. I get the feeling no one else here would be interested in keeping us around once she’s gone.”

“As your Captain!” Red screams in the midst of the vicious battle, “I order you all to talk shit about their great bitch!”

This, of course, only instigates the enemies chasing her even further.

“I may be a murderer, Cap’m, but that’s just going too far! I’m sure their mother is a lovely lady!” Cries a winged soldier as he cuts down another of the invading spider creatures.

“Captain,” buzzes an insectoid man, fighting his way towards Red, “I must refuse! From their morphology, I suspect that this ‘great mother’ may prove a compatible mate. Insulting her would make romantic approaches difficult.”

The air above us grows tense as the insect army freezes again, even the creatures closest to Red turn their hostility to the insectoid man as if forgetting her entirely.

“If you would accept yourselves as my children, we can cease these pointless hostilities.” He continues, before the weight of the enemies’ rage turns to him.

“Get him!”

“He would defile our mother with his filthy organs!”

“Destroy him!”

“Mother is ours!”

“Die!”

“Oh, dear…”

With such energizing shifts in momentum, the skies above us remain in constant chaotic conflict. Even through the clamour of battle, I can still clearly hear the insults being thrown about.

“We should hope for her victory.” Nel says, her gaze following the tall red figure swimming through the sky.

“Yes, and let’s not insult their mother.”

The girls all turn at once to glance at me.

“What?”

“I’m glad you came to that conclusion, but…” Eshya starts.

“You’re the only one who even considered it. None of us have been mad enough to be casually exchanging insults with Captain Lefue, let alone this insect army.” Nel says, awkwardly looking away from me. It takes me a moment to realize she’s talking about Red.

“I’m not that bad.”

They look at me disbelieving, distracted even from the battle raging above us.

“Okay, fine. I get it, I’ll stop insulting powerful people. Can we focus on the battle now?”

“Look up!” Vii cries, as a thunderous crushing erupts from further in town.

The spider people above are shedding little spikes, sending them raining over the settlement. Red and her vanguard dodge or deflect them as they continue to carve through the enemy forces, but those of us grounded are not so able.

A few of these spikes scatter over the field, and where they land the earth erupts. Churning motion shreds anything that stands within a metre of where the spikes land, whether that be a wooden crate reduced to splinters, or an unlucky student blended into a dirt smoothy.

“Guys, let’s not step into the mincers.” I say.

“Wasn’t planning on it.” Eshya replies.

“I’m above all of that.” Vii says hovering just off of the ground with her wings and magic, and laughing a little too desperately.

I quietly stir my mana, drawing in more and more in a growing panic myself. I have no power. I have no attacks. If just one of those spider people comes down here, they’ll see us dead in a heartbeat, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

What’s something I can learn right now that might help in a fight? Something that mightn’t be strong, but can still be meaningful?

Light magic, maybe, or sound magic, but I don’t feel like trawling through the chip to try and find them, just to slam my head against a wall to try and figure something out from the limited clues I can scrounge up.

Fire.

Most animals are afraid of fire, and even if beasts are different, a bright blast of fire to the face should blind them for a few moments.

Chip has told me next to nothing about how to make it happen, but I mean, I know the physics behind fire so maybe that’ll help. Besides, I have nothing but time as we wait for the enemy to come to us.

Using my experience from the other two successful Skills, I form a vortex of mana on my finger and mess with it. I think of fire, imagine burning oxygen, flames of blue, yellow and red, and a dozen other things, but they all fail to form even a spark from the mana bursting from my fingertip.

More and more of the mincers rain down on us alongside the blood, the guts, and limbs shed by the combatants above. Red and her small army continue the slaughter, keeping up the inciteful banter and keeping the enemies focus on themselves.

“You know, before I got caught up in this shit, I thought it was nerve-wracking to ask a girl on a date. The last time I tried, just a couple of weeks ago, you should have seen me. I was so damn nervous sweating like crazy, and I just felt terrified, thinking up what I’d say when she turns me down.”

“You?” Eshya asks, “That’s what scares you?”

“I’ll fight a beast any day rather than getting that… look. It doesn’t matter if they’re polite or not, when a pretty girl looks at you disgusted. It freakin’ hurts.”

We shuffle about, glancing at the skies. There’s nothing in reach. Nothing to fight.

Nel chuckles.

“What’s so funny?”

“Don’t give me that look, I don’t mean anything mean by it. I just can’t imagine you all nervous like that. I’d like to see it for myself.”

“Sure, I’ll ask you out after we’re done, and you can all laugh at me.”

“Me too!” Vii demands, “I want to see cute Kyra too.”

“Of course, I’ll be watching this too.” Eshya snickers.

“Damnit.” I mutter, trying to withhold a laugh.

“You just reminded me of something. Do you know how many people I have to turn down at work?” Nel says.

“Wait, so you’re thinking of turning me down?”

“Shut up, it’s my story time. As a waitress I come across so many different people, and I’ve been propositioned by every which sort.

“There’s this one that I’ll never manage to forget. He was a fish, and he was flirting with me. He… he was only as long as one of my fingers, and was carried around in a bowl of water for goodness sake, but he had to be the most confident creature I’ve ever met. Would you believe he was the smoothest flirt I’ve ever heard, too?”

“So did you go for it?” Vii asks.

“Not my type. Not even close.” She shudders at the thought.

Eshya and Vii start sniggering as we watch people fighting and dying above us. Yet, we stand here with sticks and clubs that can’t reach the enemy. An unwilling audience, too frightened to run away. Pretending that we can’t see what’s happening right before our eyes.

“Damnit,” Vii says, covering her face with her wings, “I… I’m horrible at noticing that sort of thing.”

“At noticing?”

“Yes, I mean I just think that they’re being nice most of the time. I don’t even notice.” She squeezes out between laughs, “I, I was having lunch with this girl. We were, like, thirteen, maybe fourteen. I was eating this cream dessert of some sort, and I got some of it on my cheek.

“This girl was the sweetest thing. She carefully wiped it off my cheek, licked it, and said, ‘Vii, I like you’ and she didn’t say it lightly, you know. It was properly heavy and confession-like, and do you know how I reacted?

“I said, ‘I like you, too. You’re a great friend.’”

“That would’ve hurt.” I cringe, wiping away some of the blood rain.

“The thing is, I didn’t even realize that she meant it as a confession until a year later. It just hit me out of the blue.” She says, restraining her desperate laughter.

More dead fall, the town stained in blood, but all we can do is watch on. Knowing, that our time will come soon. Knowing the battle has only just begun.

“What about you Eshya?” Vii asks, “Any stories?”

“Not so much.” She replies thoughtfully, “Let me think… Oh, oh-no, actually there is something.”

“Well go on, we don’t have all day.” I reply, watching as one of Red’s soldiers falls from the sky and into a mincer. Blood splatters all around us. “The weather seems to be turning for the worse…”

“I guess there’s no point keeping secrets now.” She says, “I have five sisters back home, and so growing up I had to share a room with my big sister. So, this one day, while she was in the baths, I thought… I thought I had some time to myself. Let off some stress, you know what I mean?”

“What?” Nel asks, her eyes popping from her skull in realization.

“You’ve got the same parts, you do it too. Don’t go pretending otherwise,” She says, “Well, I thought I had some time to myself, but… she forgot her clothes. She came racing into the room and I was… There. I mean, I was there. If you know what I mean. So, she looks at me, and I can’t move. I’m frozen in shock.”

“Wait, you weren’t under your covers or anything? You were naked in plain sight?”

“Of course, I’m not going to make a mess in my sheets. Anyway, she walks in, gets her clothes and leaves, that’s bad enough, but then she turns around and talks through the door and… ‘I’ll be a while in the bath, you can take your time’.

“For months I could barely even look her in the eyes.” She says choking back her laughter.

“If we live through this, you’d better never pretend I never said any of that.” She says, turning away as her face glows red.

“You think I could forget it?” I reply, gasping for air.

“The walls, they’re all over the walls.” Nel whispers, and I swallow back my laughter.

Our time has come.

As she says, the tall stone walls that surround the town are now the heart of a new battle. The guardsmen are fighting hard, slaying countless beasts and throwing them from the walls. Those that fall inside are finished by the townspeople waiting for them below.

The beasts that flood the walls are not the same as those that fight above us, these ones act much more like animals than people. They show no hint of hesitation as they clamber over the corpses of their allies, and even snap at each other during the fighting.

Most of the beasts have some form of shell or exoskeleton, but that’s where the similarities stop. Limbs of all shapes, numbers and sizes. Some have large jaws and sharp teeth, some have tall horns, and some have sharp claws, some have fangs, and some have large snapping mandibles.

The smaller of these creature’s flood past the guardsmen on the walls and dive into the melee of townspeople below.

Men, women, and even the older children wield weapons of metal and bone, rather than the blunted sticks we’re left with. They move in formations that are too well practiced to be from peacetime training alone, and they don’t hesitate to wet their blades with the blood of the invading beasts.

The invaders scatter, running between barracks and into homes to escape and transforming the town to a chaotic battlefield.

As these stray beasts advance upon us, most of the students flee. Some hide in the barracks, some sprint deeper into the town, and only a precious few stand and fight.

Be it bravery or stupidity. We stay.

Red may be a mass murderess, but she seems to want to keep us alive. She ordered us in no uncertain terms to stay and to fight, and I don’t want to know what she’s got planned for those who run.

“Go away! Leave me alone!” Screams a student as he’s run down by a charging beast.

The hound-like creature, covered in hard red shell, doesn’t really give a shit, leaping on the student and tearing into his shoulder. Its vertically split jaws open wide, showing off sharp yellow teeth. Without a care for the battles surrounding it, it leans forwards and starts chewing on the screaming students face like a dog would a bone.

“Support me!” Eshya shouts as she runs at the distracted hound.

She jumps high and cuts down at the hound’s neck, but for all her passionate yelling, her blunt practice sword clatters worthlessly off of the red shell.

It turns to face us in no particular rush, blood still dripping from its jaws as the dying student whimpers quietly beneath its feet.

Vii, flying low to the ground, summons winds around her before slamming into the head of the distracted hound. Her talons crack the thin chitin around it’s face and spill blue blood.

The hound snaps at her, but she’s already gone.

The other students have all either retreated or gotten trapped in their own life or death battles. The townspeople near us are fighting larger groups of beasts and shouting loud for their every injury and victory.

There’s no one coming to help us.

“Just another rude customer.” Nel chants quietly under her breath. She stands beside me, readying her staff in the face of creature that roars angrily at us.

I pop the mana on the tip of my finger, demanding that it spawn flames, which of course it doesn’t.

It charges.

Eshya rushes ahead to face it but her blunt wooden sword clatters worthlessly the red shell, yet again. She’s barely fast enough to dive backwards to the ground as the hound’s jaws snap closed a hairsbreadth from her skin.

“That sort of behaviour is unacceptable,” Nel says, level but forcefully as she approaches.

Her staff is thrust deep into its open jaws, causing it to let out a stifled yelp.

“Now!” Eshya yells leaping to the back of the creature and shoving it toward Nel, trying to skewer it on the staff.

Vii swoops in, lashing out at it’s face while it’s too busy to fight back.

“Fuck it up.” I say, giving moral support, and not getting in the way. Damn my weak mana-less body.

The hound doesn’t take to any of this kindly. It thrashes around, gnawing with its sharp teeth, and carving apart the would-be skewer.

“Back!” Eshya yells a moment before the beast lashes out. The staff is torn from Nels hands and swung violently about as the creature whips its head from side to side. I pull her out of the way and get struck across the side.

A well placed ‘mana shield’ reduces the blow to bruising strength, I stumble back, not yet dead.

We regroup while the hound circles us, splintering the staff in its sharp jaw. Eshya is careful to keep herself between us and the beast as it moves, she bravely lifts her wooden sword, even with how useless it’s been so far.

None of our attacks are doing enough damage.

Even without any of the other beasts around joining the fight, we’re seeming rather badly screwed. I look around for something, anything, that might save us, until my eyes fall upon a particular pit of churning earth.

“The mincer!” I shout, “Shove the fucker in the mincer!”

“Right!” Eshya says, “Nel, pick up a weapon, while I bait it close!”

“Yes, I’ll do that.” Nel replies, trembling.

“Right here, crack-fuck!” She shouts, leaping in and attacking. Her strikes still bounce from the creature, but her dancing steps are enough to evade the swipes it takes at her. She carefully positions herself between the mincer and the dog before striking it again.

The beast, aggravated by her attacks, pounces at her. She throws herself to the side and rolls out of its reach, as the beast comes to a stop right beside the trap. Vii swoops in to try and shove it into the churning pit of death, as Eshya, Nel and I race to join.

Sensing the danger just barely in time, the beast resists, twisting away and forcing us to step away else we dive headfirst into our own trap.

Sweat forms on my brow as I watch the dog slowly approach.

“GraaAAHH!” The minotaur roars as he tackles the beast and throws it into the pit.

The beast howls desperately as it’s torn limb from limb and blended into paste by the magics affecting the earth.

“Thanks!” Eshya calls to him as she cautiously steps away from the red mush that remains of our foe.

“Useful trap.” He mutters, stepping away to recover for a few breaths before charging right back into another battle.

“He stole my kill…” Eshya pouts jokingly now that he’s gone, “Lucky.”

The battle isn’t yet over, but it is winding down.

The air above us now holds far fewer of the invaders, and those that remain are being quickly cut down, their corpses falling all around. Some of Red’s warriors are now diverting their attention to support the ground battle.

The guardsmen on the walls, though overwhelmed early on, now reach out to reclaim the sections of wall that were taken. The beasts mostly run away from them trying to escape the town that has rebuffed their advance.

In the streets, the townspeople are still fighting hard, through injuries and walking over their dead, they wield their weapons tirelessly to clear the enemy from their home.

The students… most have scattered already, the few that remain are in formations like ours.

Or lying dead in field.

“Beast!” Nel shouts, raising her spear at a shelled beast that comes charging at us. A sword is struck through its side, but it doesn’t care, throwing all of its rage at us.

It’s too heavy.

It’s too fast.

It’s too strong.

But we’re not alone anymore.

As we dive out of its path, a formation of townspeople charge the beast’s side. The spearmen penetrate deep in the side of the beast and together they throw it down to the earth.

Those with swords and daggers surround it, cutting and carving it away until all life is gone from the chunks of it that remain.

“Thanks for the help.” I call, but they ignore me, focused on searching for the next beast to kill.

I grind my teeth powerlessly as I watch them put down another beast. Burning with frustration, relief, and exhaustion I feel a burning heat on the tip of my finger, and with a small pop, the mana vortex bursts into a small splash of fire.

~Skill developed.

~Fire magic (Grade 1): Flame burst

“Fucking really? Now?” I glare at the red blister forming on my fingertip.

“Gather the smaller beasts, my students need something to teach them some proper fighting spirit.” Red shouts down from above, pulling the legs from the arachnid like a child pulls the petals from a flower. I can practically hear her saying, ‘she loves me, she loves me not’ as she tosses the creatures legs to the ground.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Classes & Skills

~Mana Form: Grade 1

Current goal: Develop your mana form.

Current mana density: 21 units

~Fire Magic: Grade 1

Current goal: Develop a Skill for fire manipulation.

-Skill: Flame burst

~Defensive Techniques: Grade 1

Current goal: Develop a Skill for reactive mana skin.

-Skills: Mana skin

~Combat Techniques: Grade 1

Current goal: Develop a Skill for mana infusion.

-Skills: Mana shield.