Book 2: Chapter 41 - Critical Failure After Critical Failure

This school fucking sucks.
—Aubrey Clarke, Overheard

Mr. Clay was fucking useless. That made two people in a single day. Two people who’d fucked with her plans with unpredictable incompetence. She wasn't usually one to risk an overly high opinion of anyone around her, but some of the people in this goddamn school were making it a difficult mistake to avoid. She didn't think of herself as notably impressive, all things considered. She knew she wasn't the smartest, bravest, or most skilled person in any given room. 

If she excelled in anything in particular—by her own evaluation—it was self-awareness. A freeing variety that simply offered her more tools than her opponents. She was in control because she knew she had to fight for it. And had given up on unachievable ideals. She didn't hesitate to do what she needed to do to stay in control of her life. 

The other skill she had was simple, but she was starting to question it. She understood people. When to push, and when to pull. What they would do in response. It was the same skill, really. She understood both herself and the people around her better than they did. 

But she'd relied on both Guy and Mr. Clay to be useful in the most basic ways imaginable, and both did exactly nothing. Neither tried and failed, as far as she could tell. They just sat there with their dicks in their hands like useless sacks of pigshit.

As a result, Violet was pinned against a crystal railing with a giant snake’s fangs in her shoulder. She hadn't been planning to actually fight the queen. She’d only needed the ambush from the hedron, really. Enough danger to force the entire group to use their respective potions, but not enough to draw Clay into the fight. Of course, Kassie’s team had the opposite problem that Guy and Clay’s did. Their competence far exceeded Violet’s expectations. Thankfully, there had been more hedron than she'd expected. She was less than pleased that she didn’t know why her mental call had been answered by so many. But it had at least temporarily worked out. It had, in fact, forced Kassie’s team to drink the so-called “medicine” Samuel had provided for Kiera. 

The queen's arrival, on the other hand, was a problem. A fact Violet quickly realized while the two tested each other with light jabs and sharp movements. It was decidedly not obedient to her, as many hedron were. She couldn’t simply order it to fuck off, or even to put on a good show with no effort. It wasn’t immediately violent, either, as the bat queen had been. But it was far from agnostic, like the moose. The best way she could describe it was… well. Precisely what it was. A territorial monster faced with a stronger invader. And Violet was stronger than it. There was no mistaking that. She could feel it the moment she met its eyes. Some interaction she’d never had with another student or lancer.

She could kill it with a little effort, if she brought all her strength to bear. It would actually serve her extremely well to save the entire group's lives again. But she couldn’t be seen doing that. She’d wanted to look like a red for a little while longer. Single-handedly killing not just another red queen, but a degree ten? That would give the game away. 

Her first option was to ask for her team’s help and fight without all of her strength... while leaving Kassie’s team undefended. That was an attractive option, since she’d just been wondering how she could dispose of Kassie. But she quickly discarded it. Her brief… fear of the druid had been brought on in a moment of surprise and adrenaline. Violet wanted fewer bodies showing up on record while she was in the room, and she didn’t actually have a good reason to want Kassie dead. The desire itself had been a momentary loss of control, in fact.

This left only the option of protecting the incapacitated students and disposing of the queen. Which would not have been a problem if Mr. Clay hadn’t been missing. But he was, so she needed to kill it. She wouldn’t be caught by Clay, at least. If he were watching, he’d be fighting. At least, she had to gamble on that probability. It was more likely than otherwise, and she didn’t see a lot of great alternatives. On the bright side, the students with the best perception were currently paralyzed. And the rest were protecting them. They’d have to keep an eye on the fight to do that, but they wouldn’t be able to focus on what Violet was doing too closely. 

Violet had checked on each of them to make sure this was the case. And, as she’d expected, both Aubrey and Kiera had split attention. Half focusing on the still bodies of other students, and half watching the snake. 

Guy, on the other hand, had been standing there all but pissing himself. Leaving Dustin completely unprotected. And locking his eyes directly on Violet.

For all the times a man had watched her too closely, this one irritated her the most. She really didn’t understand what so many girls seemed to like about the waste of space named Guy Turner. She was going to do everything she could to discourage Kiera from pursuing him. He’d only get the fox caught in some bullshit again, like he had with Kiera’s father. She immediately filed him away in her mind and started planning a way to kill the queen while being openly watched by a well-loved witness.

And, of course, the queen used that moment to start the fight in earnest.

Violet was looking at Guy one moment, and flying through the air the next, like she’d been at the bottom of a bridge with a bungee cord tied to her. Then, she’d slammed against the railing on the second floor, and her own blood spattered across her face. She groaned loudly as fangs dug into her shoulder and bone. It hurt exactly as it had when she’d first been hit by the moose. She wasn’t in control. Constitution, endurance, and strength were her weakest attributes, and existed well within the range of a red queen. 

She’d dropped her glaive at some point—when she’d been plucked from the first floor like a mouse by a hawk. She reached one hand up and wrapped it around a large red fang. She tried to lift her other hand to grip the snake’s jaw, but it had its teeth in her shoulder. Ajia may have managed it, but Violet wasn’t so impossibly flexible. The snake’s pupils narrowed as it saw her struggling, and it grew more confident. It released the pressure, and Violet felt her body separate from the railing. Instead, she dangled in the air as the hedron lowered her, coiling its body as it did.

Not to restrict her, as it might have, had she been on the ground. Rather, it did it in preparation. And a breath later, it tossed Violet in the air like a shred of meat. The sudden and sharp movement snapped Violet through space, and her spine complained. It may have actually broken if she hadn’t hit orange. She let out a scream as she flew, and cursed at the involuntary sound. 

At the same time, she caught a glimpse of Guy again—and sighed in relief. Not only was he protecting Dustin, but he’d turned his back to the fight. Kiera and Aubrey were watching her with horror, but they were both survivors in a way Guy wasn’t. They were more focused on the danger than the girl who was fighting it. They wouldn’t notice a narrow shadow extending from Violet’s waist.

And so the reaper went about her work.

Only a single vine reached for the snake. The shadow raced her to the death below and wrapped itself around a fang. Violet used that to turn her body in the air, and yank herself slightly to one side. It wouldn’t be enough to miss the mouth entirely, but that wasn’t the point. Before it could adjust to her movement, Violet had made it to the monster. Instead of sliding down its impossibly large throat, she made impact with the soft skin separating its head from an unhinged jaw. In a split second, it was moving, but Violet secured herself with several more shadows of ivy. As it thrashed, she was violently jostled. But she fell neither from its mouth nor into it. As it tried to shake her one way or the other, she reached out with one hand. She held an open palm over the maw of the queen and summoned her glaive again, this time with a point on each end. 

It extended from her hand in both directions—not as rapidly as she could make a scythe, but quickly enough. Blades cut deep into its mouth in separate spots, and it screamed. Violet's ears throbbed at the sound it made. It was as guttural as it was mechanical, flesh and crystal cooperating in offending reality. She hadn’t even realized snakes could make noise that wasn’t hissing or rattling.

It didn’t matter. She latched shadows onto the roof of the queen’s mouth for leverage. Once she had a good grip, she pushed the glaive deeper into its flesh. She couldn’t count on pressure alone to keep it in place. Not with how wide it could open its mouth. But with the weapon lodged in the top, it wouldn’t be able to close it. Violet grit her teeth as the noise screamed through her skull, then finally let go. With its jaw unable to close, she used a vine to pull herself out of its mouth entirely. She summoned a red knife in one hand and stabbed it into the soft skin that had caught her. It emerged from the other side, and Violet fed more clarity to the blade until it turned orange. As soon as only the outside of the handle was red, with an orange tang, she dismissed her ivy.

The knife cut the snake like pork belly. She slid down the long neck of the hedron in a gory mess as she separated it in an extended, winding gash. Blood erupted from it and leaked through gritted teeth as she did. She actually started to cough as too much ran into her throat and choked her. 

As she was distracted by this, the queen responded with an attack of its own. In a single movement, it slammed the side Violet was clinging to against the ground of the first floor.

Violet had little time to respond. She barely managed to pull herself slightly to one side as she felt herself descending. This was just enough that she was crushed at a slight angle. Instead of directly under the mass of muscle and crystal that made up the beast. She felt ribs crack, and one of her shoulder blades made a noise like a rusty knife through Jell-O. She wasn't sure what might create such a disgusting sound, but she was fairly certain it wasn't ideal. Her back actually seemed to bounce off the red floor as the snake lifted its shredded head. Her skull certainly felt like it had cracked against the ground twice, anyway.

She didn't have time to put the sequence of events together precisely, however, as the hedron’s tail was already descending on her. She cried out in pain as she rolled to one side, misplaced bones protesting any and every movement. But she'd made it to orange, and it didn't seem like anything vital had been destroyed. It hurt like sin, but if she could move, she could fight. Hell, she’d have already won if Guy hadn't fucked up and distracted her. Quiet Ivy was easy to hide against the ground, and she used it to drag herself the extra few inches she needed to avoid the impact.

She summoned her glaive again, although she knew it would disappear from the queen’s mouth. But she needed it to pull herself to her feet. An act she managed with little time to spare, which she realized as soon as she glanced around her. The snake’s body blocked her vision in every direction. She'd briefly wondered why the attacks from above had stopped, and had even been relieved at the fact. She spat blood on the ground with a groan of disdain as the walls closed in on her. She didn't think that blood belonged only to the snake.

The hedron’s head appeared above her, and serpent eyes seemed to smile at her in place of its mangled mouth. She looked up at the monster as its body closed in on her. It intended to crush her, and it thought it had won.

Violet smirked back. 

All it had done was block her friend’s line of sight and bathe her in shadows. Her glaive turned from red to orange, and she created a red barrel at the same time. While still red, it was much larger than the first one she'd made. Not large enough for a body yet, but it was getting there. For the time being, it would make a serviceable chair. She sat down and lifted her glaive, turning it to the side. She held it with both hands, even as her wounded shoulder screamed in pain. 

“Go for it, bitch,” she challenged. 

The hedron didn't understand the literal words, but it did seem to understand the challenge. So for the first time, it followed an order she'd given it. It began to coil more quickly, lunging at her with an open mouth. A desperate attempt to knock the glaive from her hands before its body could reach her. She leaned back on her barrel as if bored, holding her weapon steady as she did.

The snake nearly reached her, and its jaw snapped shut as it expected to catch her. Except its head had stopped too soon. Violet stared up with a satisfied smile. Her Quiet Ivy held its head in place from all angles, completely invisible in the shadows cast by the hedron's body. It tried to pull itself free, and it would be able to after only a few seconds. As soon as it did, Violet knew it would simply risk the glaive and crush her anyway. 

But she only needed a few seconds.

Rather than simply holding its head in place, she had her ivy crawling across its face. She was getting more proficient with the talent, and skillfully guided two vines towards each eye. Shadow had no width and slid easily between snakeskin and yellow eyes. Each vine wrapped around an eye two or three times as the hedron fought to free its head. At the same time, she anchored herself to the ground with more ivy. The moment she had a good grip on both, she let the hedron’s head go. 

The massive monster used all its strength to tear its head away from Violet. The sudden release of its restraints resulted in a sharp overcorrection, and its head collided with the bottom of the second floor as it escaped. It was such a violent, desperate moment. Far too sharp for the serpent to change course halfway, even as it felt tearing and squelching deep inside its skull. Red rained down from empty sockets as the monster screamed. Violet grinned. She held the fruit of her labor in shadow ivy, yellow and bloodied. Two eyes with unidentifiable strings of flesh and sinew still hanging from them. They’d been torn free in a single moment, and they twitched in the air in front of the reaper. She regarded them with pride, like they were still-living trophies.

At the same moment, it tried to finish crushing Violet. The glaive in her hands was no longer a strong enough deterrent, but she expanded her Quiet Ivy and pushed outward against it. It was stronger than her, and it would overpower her quickly. But its head was thrashing wildly and blindly, and she'd climbed to her feet. She dropped the eyes, stomping on one on her way to drive her glaive into its side. 

It was here she largely lost track of things. She had to replace both tools rapidly to avoid revealing the orange weapon. The snake was no longer targeting her specifically. It was howling in a way no snake ever should, and looking for any blood it could find. 

The walls around her disappeared as it searched for something to hurt. Its tail and head thrashed in opposite directions.

Violet took stock of the scene as soon as she could, and winced as the tail slammed against Guy’s back. Thankfully, it seemed unable to tell the difference between Guy and the crystal of the nest. It left visible cracks in his armor, but didn't repeat the attack. 

Kiera, however, reacted to the crunching sound with an involuntary gasp. The queen immediately snapped its head toward the fox, then closed in on her. Violet had to ignore the agonizing complaints of her muscles as she broke into a hobbled sprint to intercept the monster. 

“You’re not fucking hurting a single one of them!” she screamed. 

It was time for the big reveal, she realized. She didn't love the idea of losing her lead on the degree that the school thought she'd reached. But she'd make up for it. She couldn't kill this thing with red crystal. And now that she'd fought a queen one-on-one in its own nest, she could at least explain the jump.

Fire erupted from Kiera, but the queen didn't care at all. It simply used the heat as an aid to target Kiera and the paralyzed students with her. 

It unhinged its jaw, and Kiera fell backwards, tripping over her own tail as the teeth nearly closed around her. 

It stopped just short as Violet stabbed her glaive out alongside it. As she did, she grew the blade of a scythe out one end. This blade caught the snake’s mouth in the same spot she'd wounded earlier, but this time cutting deeper. 

It screeched in agony and immediately forgot the kitsune in favor of Violet. Violet was happy with that and backed away from the beast. It slithered after her, snapping wildly every time it heard her step. She met each blind strike with her scythe, carving bits of skin off a little at a time. By the time she’d reached her destination, it had open gashes and exposed muscle all over it, and its rage had grown proportionately. 

It no longer retreated when it felt the pain of being cut open, and it pushed through the scythe to knock Violet on her ass. Her splintered bones cried out as she fell, but she immediately flattened against the ground and held the scythe close to her chest. As the snake's belly traveled over her, she let the blade slice it open.

Finally, it started to slow. Violet rolled over and forced herself to stand. At the same moment, the monster ran into a pillar, then tried to turn. 

“It’s blind!” Violet yelled. “Fucking scream!”

That order could only have been meant for one soul, but it wasn't followed right away.

“Remember! You can trust me! Even if you don't trust yourself to use this talent, you can trust me! Do you understand, Aubrey? It’s safe. And I need your help! So for the love of God, scream!”

The queen was rapidly approaching Violet, a sick gurgling escaping its mouth as it did. Violet stood perfectly still, gripping her scythe. 

And, exactly as she hoped, she heard the shrill scream of a Banshee before the serpent could reach her. She'd run to this spot for a reason, and it worked exactly as she'd hoped. The snake was charging her when the scream hit its head like a physical force. It was knocked to the side, and it lost all sense of direction.

As it smashed its skull into the second floor above it, then the floor below it, Violet drank in her adrenaline and ran toward it, growing her scythe in size as she did. It had no sight. It couldn't hear. Its nose was clogged with its own blood. All it could do was thrash. 

Violet summoned an orange knife, then threw it as hard as she could at the beast. It was the hilt and not the blade that hit its body, but that didn't matter. What mattered was the response. With only touch left to it, the queen used the contact as an indication of where to attack. As it collided with the ground where it hoped to find Violet, its target approached from the side. 

And, before it could lift its head, a scythe collapsed on its neck like a guillotine. It only cut halfway. Violet had to fight to retrieve it from wet meat as the head thrashed and twitched. It crashed to the ground as the scythe was pulled free. Then the blade was in its neck again, this time cutting through to the bottom.

Finally, the head of the snake fell free from its body. In its wake, a wounded girl leaned on a cartoonishly oversized scythe, her clothes and face completely drenched in blood. She was nearly limp with exhaustion, but she had won. She had survived. Despite the shocking incompetence of her teacher.

And she knew, even as she held her side in one hand and let blood escape her mouth like drool… 

…she’d won far more than a simple fight.