Book 2: Chapter 39 - Best Safety Lies in Fear

This school fucking sucks.
—Violet Asher, Overheard

“Protect the reds!” Kassie shouted, and her team immediately surrounded Violet’s in a triangle. Dustin stayed in the middle with Violet. His abilities were most effective from the center, and he immediately started using them. He began to sing, loud and clear. His song was slow and emotional, but somehow still panicked, like the adrenaline of grief. Violet could feel it empower her, but she frowned as it did. The issue with talents like his was the inability to target individuals. His clarity was like an area attack. If he overpowered the resistance of anyone who could hear him, he would improve a specific attribute.

That included hedron.

It seemed more dangerous than helpful to use that talent in such a large group. At least, until the mist was polluted by a thicker, brighter competitor. Orange mixed with mauve and floating particles of crystal filled the space around them. It was unlikely this new mist was filling the entire nest, but it enveloped the emerging battlefield at the very least. It was also thick enough that, even at a limited range, Violet couldn’t see where it ended.

Aubrey and Kiera both started to move, but Violet caught them each by an arm.

“Wait,” she hissed.

“They need help!” Aubrey protested. 

“This is literally what I’m here for!” Kiera agreed. 

Violet shook her head. “Can you two not see what’s happening around us? We’ll get in the way,” she replied. Her struggling teammates seemed confused, and Violet didn’t blame them. She was taken aback herself. 

Violet had experienced a team of yellow lancers in combat before. They’d fallen apart when faced with a green hedron, which was expected. But they’d also been clumsy and inefficient while fighting red monsters on the road. She hadn’t really been able to see them at the time, since she’d still been a Category White. But she could smell incompetence. It clung to people like smoke. And, of course, she’d seen Stephanie face a swarm. The panic and fear she was used to from lancers was entirely missing here. Kassie’s team were all orange, but they fought with brutal efficiency. Violet could hardly believe what she was seeing. She was almost irritated by the sight. 

Dustin’s indiscriminate buffing made perfect sense alongside Kassie’s talent. The hedron were empowered, but they were also confused. Within seconds of the attack, monsters were tearing each other apart. Their strength was enhanced, but constitution, resistance, and endurance remained at their base levels. The chaos was bloody and all-consuming, hedron attacking every living being in the space indiscriminately. One wolf tore at the throat of another, red fangs cracking against armored fur. Even as they shattered, they drew blood. Another was torn apart between two of its warring companions. Its hind leg ripped little by little as its ankle was pulled in the teeth of a larger wolf. Meanwhile, red stone and liquid met the hedron biting its shoulder, like a wave against the face of a cliff.

Without moving a muscle, two talents had turned a crisis into a gruesome show. Violet and her team would have barely needed to fight at all, even if that had been the only action taken. Nearly four dozen hedron, and at least twenty were killing each other. 

But that was simply the trick Kassie had opened with. 

Zach seemed to only have one combat-ready talent. The same bright orange yet white-hot laser that had killed every hedron within a mile of the group on the way over. It was incinerating wolves one at a time with shocking precision. Considering Zach never knew what talents he’d have until the day he used them, his skill with this one nearly strained credulity. 

He was thankfully slow to charge and aim, so he wasn't disposing of the monsters too quickly. Violet’s plan didn't exactly allow for multiple attempts. And while she'd known a full team of orange lancers wouldn't struggle too much with a pack of red hedron, she had hoped they'd have more trouble than this. If they killed all the wolves with clarity to spare, Violet wasn't sure what her next step would be. She couldn't exactly manifest an entire swarm like she'd used against Stephanie.

She hoped the others on Team Girlboss would be in a worse position. Violet let her eyes drift from Zach and searched for Ajia instead. She was only able to spot the shapeshifter by the orange crystal covering her thick fur. The crystal, the excessive ferocity the girl was fighting with, and the comically stretched windbreaker she still wore. Aside from those small details, Ajia looked exactly like the attacking hedron. From her tail to her bloodied snout. She moved with brutal irregularity, and Violet struggled to track her. All the reaper could really follow was the meat and bone left in Ajia's wake, at least until she had an enemy pinned. Then, Violet watched with morbid focus as overly muscled paws held a hedron down. Orange claws tore into its hide like a knife through a wineskin. Ajia’s fangs were nearly six inches long, with blood and drool mixing as she chewed on the throat of her prey.

Violet would have been annoyed if only these two were outperforming her expectations. But when her eyes landed on Kassie…

The druid moved her body like a paintbrush.

She was uncanny in her calm, and far too fluid in her movements for anything so fallible as mankind. Originally, Violet thought the crystal claws and fangs Kassie grew would have been more fitting on a vampire than a druid. But the elegance of her violence was furious like wind and pervasive like a flood. Kassie had always been a friendly, simple girl. A bit too simple to impress herself on Violet's mind as Kiera had. But while watching this battle, she understood what made Kassie a druid.

The blonde strolled past a large hedron, one rampant and howling while confused by the orange mist. As she did, she held one hand to her side as if casually tracing wall art with her fingers. Her claw sliced through the monster’s throat like water, leaving a thin, wet line as she passed. A breath later, and it fell to the ground in convulsions. She left it choking on blood as she quickly found her next target.

The beast in question pounced at her, but she stepped casually to the side like displaced steam. Her hand again moved with casual grace, three fingers opening the belly of the beast using only sharp edges and its own momentum. There was almost a beauty to death, like watching oil hit liquid. At first, it was a gentle dance Violet wouldn't dare to call brutal. Even the blood decorating Kassie's clothes had the look of skillfully applied paint to canvas. The first stroke of what would surely be a masterpiece. 

Then, the corpse left Kassie’s attention and touched the cold crystal floor. The moment it did, it ceased to be art and became meat. Organs and sinew spilled from ugly, gnarled wounds. Bits of rib were visible, struggling to bear the weight of flesh as it tore away from bone. It was the type of sight with a smell, so visceral that Violet’s nose wrinkled before the scent of the body’s shit could reach it.

Kassie continued to swim through the monsters. Violence like a waltz wherever she walked, turning to gristle and steaming flesh in her wake. She was a moment of beauty in a portrait of gore. Violet watched her turn just as she was attacked, rolling from her shoulder to her back against the hedron assaulting her. She reached out and touched the head of another, claws digging into its skull before tearing a chunk of it free. This she threw at a hedron preparing to ambush Zach a few feet away. 

Her other hand flattened, rigid fingers pressing against each other. She used it like a knife, stabbing into the exposed gray matter of the now howling wolf. As she did, the monster she’d sidestepped recovered, turning and making a second attempt on her neck. 

Kassie simply leaned backwards, just enough to let it pass within an inch of her chest. While it leapt over her, she lifted both hands and burrowed her claws into either side of its neck. She gripped it, then twisted her torso with shocking speed and force, forcing its head into the ground. The crack of bone was cut short by the squelch of flesh as the druid used blunt force to decapitate the wolf. 

Even as she was still in the act of this kill, she lifted one foot behind her, catching another hedron on the chest and knocking it to the ground. With no time to withdraw her claws from the corpse in her hands, she shifted her weight and turned on one foot. She pushed herself toward the fallen monster behind her, allowed herself to collapse, and wrapped her leg around the neck of the recovering hedron. She pinned it in place with the inside of her knee as it yelped. Still holding the headless body of her previous target, she threw it as her back hit the ground. It ceased to exist for Kassie, but collided with another wolf just as it leapt at Ajia.

Free from the first corpse, she forced her back off the ground, sitting up and increasing the pressure of her leg on the monster she had trapped. At the same moment, a snarling hedron lashed out at her, trying to bite her arm. Without looking at it, she snapped her arm out to meet it. While its fangs left bright red lines on her arm and tore one sleeve, her claws made ribbons of its mouth. In a single motion, she was holding something deep inside its throat. Violet thought it might be its spine. It didn't matter. It was in pain, but it was still alive as she used it as a weapon, smashing its head against the skull of the trapped hedron beneath her.

She was going to kill them all, well before Violet’s team had to lift a finger. And Violet knew why Kassie was called a Druid. She'd seen yellows fight. She’d killed them. But Kassie was only an orange. The same category as Violet. And yet…

The girl was a force of nature.

Supposedly, the blonde and her team had never been in a nest before. They'd never fought in the mist. And yet this was what they were capable of. 

Violet had wanted the hedron to attack. She'd needed them to, for her plan to succeed. But as she watched Kassie fight, a faint worry ate at her. Not just that the group’s leader would eliminate the threat too quickly, although she was growing increasingly concerned about that. But also…

Kassie was doing this to protect all the students in the nest. Part of Violet wondered how quickly Kassie would turn that brutal and unhesitant death on Violet, if she knew who’d caused the danger in the first place. 

It made Violet shudder.

She felt a mix of ugly emotions as she watched the fight play out. The jealousy was unsurprising. Kassie had been lucky. Born with a kind calling, and one that let her live like the heroes from Violet’s favorite stories. Whereas Violet had been forced to adopt a far less heroic outlook just to survive. Violet wanted to be a hero. But humanity was rotten, and spoiled, and hateful. And she had to hate them back. Lead them. Rule them. Or they would discard her like so much refuse.

But jealousy wasn't chief among her emotions. It was simply the only one she could easily name. The other was familiar, but alien at the same time. Like a picture coming into focus. She’d felt it all her life, but like a child wearing glasses for the first time, the detail and depth of it had never been so real before. She was still holding Kiera and Aubrey by the wrists, and she was forced to let go as her fingers started to tremble, ever so slightly. Her friends understood by then that they had nothing to offer now. So she didn’t need to hold them back. Which was a relief, because she couldn't share this emotion with anyone. Ever.

Kassie would kill Violet to save the other students. Violet didn't know how she understood this, but she did. Like the mouse understands the first cat it sees.

Kassie was dangerous. Even at orange, the druid was more dangerous than anyone Violet had ever met, except perhaps Cyan. And as she realized this, two thoughts flashed through her mind, one after the other. 

I need to kill her.

I am going to die.

Violet flinched at her own mind. That wasn't right. That wasn't how things worked. Violet was in control. A shiver ran down her spine, and her heart tried to fight its way out of her chest, but Violet was in control. She was in no danger from children. She wasn't going to die, and the thought was stupid. And she couldn't let a danger like this exist in peace. She tried to focus and begin planning how she would eliminate the threat.

I need to kill her.

I am going to die.

Again, the second thought followed the first, like they were intrinsically connected. It was stupid. Kassie was still an orange. Easy to overcome. 

I need to kill her.

I am going to die.

It was no use. The adrenaline was messing with Violet’s head, and one thought refused to exist without the other.

It was annoying, but it was a minor issue. Kassie was, well. Dim. She was a superficial girl, and an easy one to lead like a horse. Violet was overthinking it. However competent Kassie was in a fight, that didn't make the druid any smarter. She wasn't a threat. Violet didn't have to kill her. There was no reason to.

As soon as she realized this, she started to relax. And a moment later, Zach made the move Violet had been waiting for. He was running low on clarity, and he took a second potion out of his pack mid-fight. After drinking it, he tossed another in Ajia's direction, which the shapeshifter caught in her animalistic jaws. Kassie took a few moments longer to need one, but she, too, pulled out a potion.

These did their jobs, but not as well as expected. As the fight dragged on, Violet had to suppress a grin as more and more potions were consumed. Each was taken more quickly than the last. Kassie’s entire team finished three to four per person before the druid crushed the skull of the final monster. 

“Jeez!” Kassie exclaimed as she stood in the center of unidentifiable hedron meat. She was drenched in blood, almost none of it her own. She looked like something from a horror movie, red dripping even from her eyelashes. “They just, like, kept coming, huh? That was totally weird, right?”

Everyone was silent for a long moment. Kassie’s team was catching their breath, and Violet’s was a bit dumbstruck. Aubrey was the first to actually answer the question.

“Yes. Yes, that was weird. In the textbooks, this only happens when a queen is particularly intelligent, or when a fireteam uses bait. That was… that was fucked up. How did…” she trailed off, then her face paled. “Oh, Christ. Christ, it's not over!” 

She shouted. Kassie moved next, turning on her heel. Aubrey’s talent had worked before Kassie’s perception, this time, but only by a second. Of course, everyone understood a few heartbeats later.

“Wait,” Guy complained. “Wait, if the hedron here were wolves, why the fuck is the queen a snake?”

They'd had a class on that, but he’d either slept through it, or fear had driven the lesson from his mind. It wasn't the time to explain that to him. Because the serpent in question wasn't simply a queen. It would have been dangerous by the size alone, as its torso was thicker than Violet’s waist. But that wasn't anywhere near as threatening as the orange crystal growing from its scales. 

“Oh, God,” Kassie whispered a moment later. “Kiera… Kiera, I'm sorry, I—”

Her words were cut short as she began to retch, failing to vomit but falling to her knees. She continued choking on seemingly nothing, then fell to her side in a paralyzed but perfectly conscious slump. Ajia, Dustin, and Zach took only a second to follow. 

And then it was Violet’s team of reds standing alone, and facing an orange queen.