Book 3: Chapter 32 - Brave Faces and Divine Irritation

The Cruel Ivy Killer didn’t make mistakes.
She was meticulous. She was calculating. And she always had a plan.

Anyone who says otherwise is just full of themselves.
—Ash Jasper, Cruel Ivy Fan Club Website

“Hey, is that Violet already? Wait... Oh, fuck...” Guy said. His enthusiasm quickly gave way to panic as he saw what was really approaching.

“Shit, everyone get ready!” Angelo exclaimed, scrambling to his feet seconds later.

“Fuck. Fuck, are those... people? I don’t have all my homunculi!” Lisa asked, still sitting while her body failed to adapt to what she was seeing.  

“Human hedron? Oh, God... Oh, God, those are human hedron!” Masaki gasped. He also climbed to his feet, but his posture was more panicked than combat-ready. “This was a bad idea. We need to run!”

“No fucking time for that; we’ll take the big one, you guys fight the other!” Aubrey countered. And she was right. The hedron were practically on top of them. If they ran, not only would they be abandoning Violet, they’d be putting themselves on the back foot. Potentially isolated and alone. They needed to fight while they were all together, or someone would die. That was the plan. And human hedron didn’t change it.

And with that, the world collapsed into chaos in about a fifteen-foot radius. Aubrey screamed, and no one heard a sound. Yet the smaller of the hedron briefly stumbled. The larger hedron tackled Guy, only for the boy to shatter into crystal as his decoy was destroyed. Two remaining homunculi fired elemental attacks of earth and water, while Angelo assaulted the beasts with some sort of raining light.

Absolutely no one had been prepared for this. Shouting, heat, and blood filled the space between each student. 

But Guy used his Taunt on the impossibly tall man attacking them. Meanwhile, Masaki used some sort of sensory talent to direct the smaller hedron to the other fireteam. Team Violet and Team Angelo ran in opposite directions, allowing everyone to fight with the group they were most familiar with.

Aubrey continued feeding her clarity to Wail, making sure the sound of her screams would reach only the hedron in the area. It was costly, but it was worth it to avoid repeating her mistakes. She couldn’t believe they’d finally been attacked, and it was while their team leader was missing. The selfish, uncharitable part of her mind whispered about that. Like it was somehow more than bad luck. The rest of her was prepared to fight.

The large hedron stood over Guy, who stumbled as he tried to step backward. Aubrey watched as Guy’s skin turned to orange crystal and his frozen body hit the ground. The boy was terrified, but he’d done his job. Aubrey put everything into her next scream. It was shrill and powerful. More ear-splitting than the mistake that killed Stephanie, and on a hedron in the same category.

It had its hands in the air, one fist held in the other as it prepared to shatter Guy’s defenses. And the scream hit like a shockwave... again causing only a minor misstep and a moment of hesitation. Even now, Aubrey lacked the power to genuinely fight back.

Why had it only done so much damage to Stephanie?

Kiera leapt onto the hedron’s back, digging claws into its exposed skin. Crystal caked the beast, but people were smarter than monsters, and the fox could find the gaps in its armor. Blood poured over yellow and orange, burrowing into each other, and fire erupted from the fox. Aubrey lost sight of the hedron’s face, but she watched it thrash, trying to knock Kiera off.

But even at Category Orange, the kitsune was feral and far too dangerous to fight without a mind. Both red and orange tails flashed through the fire, and new bits of blood and flesh appeared every few seconds. Finally, the monster reached over its shoulder and caught Kiera by the hair. Using that as leverage, it pulled her over its head to slam her into the ground next to the frozen tank. 

Before it could, Kiera shifted into a fox and easily jumped to freedom. This left the hedron empty-handed and flat-footed. In the moment of confusion, Aubrey screamed again, paralyzing the monster for the seconds her teammate needed. The two-tailed fox circled behind the bleeding beast, biting into its ankle before shifting back into a girl. As Kiera changed, one hand clawed its way into the ground while she interlocked her legs with the monster. Using its own strength and forward momentum against it, she sent it careening toward the dirt where yellow crystal tore from soft flesh.

And finally, finally, Guy remembered his friends were counting on him. Still half-made of crystal, the boy tackled the burning monster, interlocking his arms around its neck in a headlock, then allowing the crystal to further permeate his skin. The hedron could break him, and Aubrey could see that knowledge on Guy’s face like a storm over mountains. He actually looked like he was crying. But he held on, and the hedron was slow to adapt. 

Kiera grabbed one of the hedron’s arms, throwing all her strength into keeping it locked down. Finally, Aubrey joined them and grabbed the head of the hedron by sharp crystal and loose hair. As she felt still-heated yellow cut into her palm, she pressed her forehead against its bleeding temple. And she screamed.

It thrashed, and Guy whimpered. Kiera snarled. Aubrey screamed again. Pain flashed through Aubrey. Guy’s arms started to crack. Aubrey screamed again. Sweat mixed with the blood of her enemy, and heat from her mouth rustled the hairs in its ear.

It just wouldn’t die.

Kiera held its arm against her chest and shoved one foot against its throat. Claws tore through her boot and cut into its windpipe, causing a mechanical gurgling like oil poured through a fan. Aubrey gripped its head hard enough that she worried her fingertips would splinter. She let crystal cut into her forehead.

And she screamed like every truth she’d ever known was finally spilling out.

It fought harder and harder. Something snapped off Guy, and an agonized wail escaped his crystal body. Kiera began retracting her foot and kicking the hedron in the throat. And it only thrashed harder. It was like wrestling a fucking bull, and they couldn’t do enough damage. Until...

It jolted like it had been struck with electricity, and it finally went limp. When Aubrey looked up at last, Violet was standing over all three of them, a worried look painted on a pristine and unwounded face. Her yellow glaive had impaled the hedron, just to the side of Guy’s splintering body.

“Hey, guys,” she greeted. “You doing okay out here?”

About six hours later, both fireteams approached the entrance to the nest together. They were all exhausted, emotionally and physically. But they had a job to do, and they’d had enough time to compose themselves. Delaying would only increase the chance of another attack. Angelo halted the group to make one final check of everything before they entered. He waved his forearm in a circle, and everyone formed a perimeter with him at the center. He looked at Violet and addressed her first.

“Are you sure you don’t need healing?” Angelo asked for what must have been at least the tenth time. “You look a little banged up. I already did it for everyone who got hurt during our fight.”

Violet couldn’t accept. She felt too guilty about what had happened. Two hedron had attacked the group in her absence—which wasn’t what she’d intended, but was admittedly her fault. She knew a hedron would obey her until she attacked it, which was exactly what she’d done. It had been a lower-yellow monster, and its talents hadn’t seemed particularly impressive or combat-oriented. She thought it had been a librarian once. It had been a perfectly safe enemy to give her a few cuts and bruises without posing a serious threat to her.

What she hadn’t realized was that the homunculi counted as an extension of her and not Lisa. Violet couldn’t allow the constructs to return to their master, after all. While they may have been stubbornly silent with her, it wasn’t impossible that they’d had some way to relay what had happened to the artificer. She’d only brought them with her because she couldn’t think of a good excuse not to, and she needed to dispose of them to be safe. So while she was fighting one hedron, she’d ordered them to attack another. It would’ve been better if they were destroyed by a monster. In case the group found the pieces. She considered just ordering the hedron to kill her, but she wanted to leave signs of a fight. She thought she was being careful, funnily enough.

This was apparently the equivalent of swinging a scythe at them or firing a projectile. They were weapons, and she’d used them on a second hedron. Something she hadn’t realized at first. The monster did in fact fight with the constructs as she expected. There was nothing to draw her attention during her lovely spar with the bookkeeper. As soon as the second homunculus was destroyed, however, she’d realized she might’ve been an idiot.

For all her schemes and plans, she forgot she was essentially giving the hedron orders with her intent alone. The second monster had probably interpreted hostility from her before it had been attacked. She’d assumed an autonomous-presenting crystal man would look like a separate threat and the hedron would leave her alone. She’d failed to consider that human hedron still had human brains—even if they weren’t operating at full capacity—and she’d literally given the order directly in front of the monsters. 

She realized her mistake as she was allowing the librarian to leave a few scars, and she was unceremoniously punched in the side by the six-foot carpenter. Or she assumed he’d been a carpenter. He had more muscles than made sense, and the crystal growing from his face like a beard gave him a sort of zombie-Jesus vibe. These were all of the thoughts running through her head as she flew through the air. The monster had hit hard, and she ended up colliding with the yellow crystal of the nearest wall.

Suddenly, she was fighting two hedron in her category, and one of them was much stronger than her. It was also early in the day, and she wasn’t sure if it was the right time to use Tools of the Trade yet. She had to wait a few more hours at least. Since she’d brilliantly discarded her glaive in another part of the nest, that left her fighting with only her other talents.

Fatal Flaws revealed the larger hedron had a human body. That was it. Its weaknesses extended to joints and other obvious vital points. Which didn’t actually help Violet win a fight. As such, she did the only reasonable thing she could think of and fled. She traveled through the nest using Quiet Ivy to pull and propel herself. Like they were a spider’s legs rather than vines. This wasn’t necessarily faster than a Category Yellow could run, but it was far more maneuverable. Thanks to the complex density of the crystal around her, she managed to maintain a lead until she escaped the nest, leading both hedron out of the building and circling around so they’d lose track of her. She’d gone to retrieve her glaive, but she hadn’t considered what would happen in her absence. 

The hedron hadn’t been hunting before, so she figured they wouldn’t start just because they left the nest. They were on the opposite side of the large building, after all. It wouldn’t just run straight to her friends while she was getting a weapon. 

That was the assumption.

The carnage she returned to was undeniably her fault. But in the end, both teams together managed to kill the hedron. Angelo did need to heal several people, then recover clarity before they could even imagine entering the nest together. And everyone was left a bit shaken by the end. But all was well that ended well.

“Violet? Are you with us?” Angelo asked. 

Violet blinked. She’d let herself get lost in thought again. “Sorry, I was just reviewing my mistakes. I should have been there when everyone was attacked,” she apologized.

“Hey, we’re just glad you made it back safe,” Angelo said. “And that you showed up before anyone got irreversibly wounded.”

“Speak for yourself. My hair is ruined after that,” Kiera complained. “And look at my tail! Puffed up like a raccoon!”

Violet smiled internally. She could always count on Kiera to lighten the mood and make her feel better. “It’s always like that,” She intoned.

“And it’s beautiful,” Guy assured. The team’s tank had taken longer to recover, but he was doing it in the usual manner. That was, retreating to stupid humor so he didn’t have to confront his fear. Violet liked that about him. It was a good way to keep things light after... all of that.

“You’re sure you found the heart, though?” Lisa asked, refusing to allow any lighthearted banter. She’d lost two homunculi, and she’d been sulking about it ever since. Although their fight had been far easier than Violet’s team, so it seemed a bit petty. But, like Angelo, she’d been repeating her question. She desperately needed to believe it had been worth it. Violet did feel a little guilty about that, if less than the rest of the damage. She hadn’t realized the little rock piles were so important to the other girl.

“I am completely certain,” Violet promised. “I saw it with my own two eyes! And there are hardly any hedron in there at all. I got careless at the end there, but we managed to handle both the monsters on the route I found. I think we can make it to the heart without being attacked at all now.”

“Why didn’t you just take it, then?” Lisa asked.

“She’d have been swarmed by the rest of the hedron in the nest all at once,” Masaki immediately answered.

Violet rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. “Eh, it’s a bit hard to get to at my size, anyway. I think we’ll need Kiera’s scrawny little fox legs.”

“They’re not scrawny, they’re elegant,” Kiera corrected.

“And shiny,” Guy added.

“Dexterous,” Kiera continued.

“Nimble,” Guy agreed.

“We get the point,” Terry complained. “Can we focus on the task at hand?”

“Wedding planning?” Kiera asked, and Terry immediately shut up.

“I’m concerned about the hedron,” Masaki interrupted, also trying to refocus the team. It seemed that outside of Violet’s friends, people took life-threatening missions slightly more seriously. “A human nest always means something’s gone terribly wrong, and they are incredibly dangerous. How did we not have any intel on this before we were sent? Why were we the teams chosen? What exactly happened here, and who are these people?”

Violet understood they’d been chosen for obvious reasons. Most of them wouldn’t be missed, for one. Bouvier must not have known about Terry’s marriage talks with the Ashers. So it wouldn’t draw as much media attention to send students on a deadly mission, even if the students selected were too low-category to qualify for it. And, of course, the headmaster was desperate to push Violet to the next category. “I don’t know. Red tape, probably,” Violet answered.

“Or Mr. Bouvier just sucks at his job,” Aubrey grumbled.

“Or Mr. Bouvier just sucks at his job,” Violet agreed.

“Can you please answer the question?” Angelo pushed.

Everyone looked at him curiously, and then at each other, uncertain who he meant or what question he’d asked. Finally, Violet pointed at herself and he nodded. 

“I, uh. I think I did?” she replied. 

Angelo sighed. “My first question. Are you sure you don’t need healing? I don’t want anyone going in the nest at less than 100 percent. Not if they don’t have to,” he clarified.

Violet waved him off. “I have one bruise and a few scratches. I’ve gotten worse injuries fighting Kiera over ten minutes of extra sleep,” she said.

“And she always loses,” Kiera chimed in.

“And I always lose,” Violet repeated. “It would be a waste of clarity. Better to have your healing talent available for as many actually dangerous wounds as possible.”

“I’m already down two homunculi, and I won’t be able to replace them until we’re back in Prism. Not safely, anyway,” Lisa said. Her remaining constructs circled her, keeping watch. But it was obvious by the gaps in their formation that the job usually had two more members. “Violet is right. We should spare all the clarity we have until we really need it.”

Angelo frowned and his wings folded tight against his back. His halo seemed to actually vibrate as he considered the problem, but he finally nodded in assent. “Alright. But let me know if any kind of pain is slowing you down,” he finally agreed. “That goes for everyone, actually. I would rather use clarity than leave anyone behind. Is everyone ready?”

“I was born ready,” Kiera confirmed. 

“I was born a baby, but I grew out of it,” Guy replied.

“I’m a bit nervous about going anywhere with this team,” Lisa complained.

“Me, too,” Guy agreed. 

“She meant us, Guy,” Aubrey sighed.

“Yeah, and we’re obviously insane. It makes me nervous,” Guy insisted.

“Focus!” Angelo ordered. “This isn’t a game! This isn’t the time for morale-boosting jokes! People will die in there if we aren’t careful! Now, please, is everyone ready?”

The group was quiet for a moment, everyone giving each other slightly awkward glances. Guy and Kiera looked sheepish, while Lisa looked annoyed. Terry was as stoic as he always was, at least when Kiera and Violet weren’t teasing him. Masaki, at least, seemed to be taking this very seriously. He was more than a little worried about the crystal zombies walking around.

Violet, however, offered her sweetest smile. 

“My apologies,” she said. “My friends and I have been through a lot together. And we know how much it matters. How we speak to each other before walking into a nest, I mean.”

“What?” Angelo asked. His voice was irritated, but she could see genuine concern behind his eyes. Like an ocean sunrise behind a violent horizon.

“When you lose someone. When four people walk into a nest, and three walk out. Or when not everyone who boarded a train with you gets off at the end of the trip. You play these moments in your head, over and over again. The last things you said to each other. How you treated your friends, and how they treated you. The moments before everything goes to hell? You live with those for the rest of your life. I know it seems reckless, and irreverent, and childish. But we all know that these may be the last words we remember from our friends. We’ll fight like hell to stop that. But if we fail, we want these memories to be happy,” Violet explained. “Hopefully, you never have to understand why we’re behaving so casually. But as a lancer? You will either figure it out, or you'll be the reason your team does.”

She wore her smile the entire time she spoke, but she added pity to it before the end. She let the corner of her mouth twitch down when she referenced those she’d lost. Like the expression was a poorly mounted painting and the earth was shaking beneath it. She watched Angelo force understanding into his own expression, even as he struggled to accept what she was saying. But she knew no one would question her grief over the deaths she’d witnessed. And honestly, she wasn’t in any real danger. She knew she would be alright, and she didn’t want to play pretend that she was terrified of the nest. That would be exhausting.

Angelo sighed. “Alright. Alright, I get it. But we’re heading into the nest now. And I need to know we won’t get distracted. Please,” he begged.

Violet sniffed, then offered a nod. “We have your back, I promise. We all take this seriously, and I will fight with everything I have to keep everyone safe,” she said.

“Fine,” Angelo replied. “Then we need to go. Before the hedron inside find their way to the path you cleared.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Violet teased with a serious salute. She kept her focus on Angelo. She always had to pay close attention to people when she gave them one of her silly little speeches. To make sure they had the intended effect. She watched every expression and adjustment Angelo made, and she was certain he was under her control.

Yet, she only focused on Angelo. Which was, perhaps, why she missed the doubt settling onto one of the other faces in the circle.