Chapter 17: Helion Core [2]
THWIP!
A white thread shot across the courtyard and wrapped tight around the horned beast’s muzzle before it closed its jaws on the student in front of it.
The beast thrashed. The thread held.
"I seriously feel like Spider-Man." A figure swung between buildings on a single strand, released at the peak of the arc, and landed in a crouch between the beast and the frozen first-year.
Alden flicked his wrist.
SKRRRK.
Three invisible marks carved across the beast’s neck. It froze for one second. Then collapsed.
He dusted off his sleeve and turned toward the group of students pressed against the wall behind him.
"Nobody hurt?"
They stared at him.
Nervous nods.
"Good." He pointed toward the rampart walls visible past the academy’s east wing. "I’ll get you all there. Come on."
Nobody moved.
"...Wait." A girl near the back squinted at him. "Isn’t that Alden?"
"The one from the incident?"
"I’m not going anywhere with him—"
Alden’s eyebrow went up.
The whispers continued.
"What if he tries something while we’re—"
"ENOUGH."
Every first-year jumped at the same time.
He pointed at the Mana Beast he’d just put down. Then at the treeline where two more shapes were moving between the trees.
"Gossip all you want. But when the next one shows up—" his eyes moved across the group— "I’m throwing whoever’s talking the loudest at it first."
"W-We were just—"
"Then stop talking and follow me." He turned around. "Fall behind and I’m not coming back."
The first-years lined up behind him in approximately four seconds.
"He’s actually terrifying..."
"It’s Better to be terrified than get eaten."
"Move!"
They moved.
He got three groups to the ramparts in the next twenty minutes.
The fourth group was harder. many of them couldn’t walk properly, they were injured, and the ramparts were on the other side of a courtyard that currently had active beasts in it.
Alden looked at the courtyard. Then at the group. Then at the courtyard again.
’The ramparts aren’t going to work.’
He then thought of Lecture Hall C which had reinforced stone walls, no windows below the second floor, one main entrance he could defend from the inside. Not ideal but better than dragging injured students through open ground with Mana Beasts running through it.
"Change of plan." He looked at the ones who could still walk. "You four help carry them. We’re going to Lecture Hall C."
"But the Headmaster said the ramparts—"
"The Headmaster said get them somewhere safe." He was already moving. "Ramparts aren’t safe right now. Hall C is. Come on."
Nobody argued.
_______
The ground shook.
BOOOOM!
The earth in the central courtyard split apart in a ring pattern and something forced its way upward through stone and dirt like the ground itself was just an inconvenience.
Dark crimson scales. Wingspan that blocked the evening sky. Heat distortion visible around its entire body.
It opened its jaws. The roar shattered nearby windows.
The fireball that followed took a section of the eastern wing and turned it into something that wasn’t a building anymore.
Augustus looked up at it from the central grounds.
"...That’s considerably bigger than the others."
"It wasn’t here before." Roselle kept her eyes on it. "The Core must be destabilizing further."
Darius’s expression had gone past serious into something that moved faster.
"We’re out of time." He looked at the council. "Augustus, Nicholas, Leon, come with me. We intercept that creature before it reaches the evacuation routes."
"Understood." All three without hesitation.
He looked at the remaining three. "Roselle, Nathan, Seris. Your task is to find the Core’s bearer. While we hold the beast occupied."
Nathan gave one sharp nod. "Understood."
Roselle looked toward Nicholas.
Their eyes met for half a second. He nodded once. She nodded back. Everything that needed to be said was in it.
Darius was already gone.
Nicholas and Leon followed him into the air toward the enormous beast.
Augustus lingered one moment.
He stepped up beside Seris and took her hand, thumb twisting the ring on her finger.
"Can you manage on your own?" The corner of his mouth moved. "I’d hate for my Vice-President to get overwhelmed."
Seris turned her eyes to him.
"How considerate." She gave his finger a quick pinch before drawing her hand back. "But perhaps Your Highness should focus that concern on surviving the next few minutes."
Augustus laughed.
"There it is, I was wondering when you’d bite back." He stepped backward to the rooftop edge. "Don’t you worry, I’ve got no intention of dying before graduation."
He jumped.
Seris watched him disappear into the smoke.
’Who would worry for you, you delusional fool.’
She turned back toward the grounds. Not a trace of concern on her face.
"Let’s move."
______
Two sectors cleared.
Beasts down. Seris dismissing her scythe into crimson particles while Roselle handled the remaining few with wind blades.
The last one collapsed.
"This sector is secure." Roselle looked across the cleared area. Then found Sierra there with the other students there.
"Here you are, Sierra. You okay?" Roselle asked.
Sierra forced a smile. "Yes. Somehow."
"I’m glad."
Nathan was already scanning past it. "Then we get back to the actual objective." He lowered his voice. "The Core’s bearer. We still have nothing to track."
Roselle frowned.
’How are we supposed to find one person across an entire academy when the artifact shows there’s no sign of it?’
Seris’s gaze drifted toward the rampart walls.
Something was off.
Not many people there. Far fewer than there should have been given the number of injured she’d seen moving through the grounds earlier.
’Did that brat fail and die halfway?’ Alden’s face came to mind.
Before the thought finished forming, Leon landed beside them.
"Status here?"
"Secure for students," Nathan said. "Planning for the search of the core."
Leon nodded. "Headmaster, Augustus, and Nicholas have the Beast on hold to buy us time. Headmaster sent me to help you guys."
Then looked toward the ramparts.
His expression changed immediately.
"Where are the first years and injured ones?"
Roselle looked too. "There should be far more than this. I saw dozens of injured during the fighting."
"Who was assigned to evacuate them?"
"Alden." Seris said it without particular emphasis.
The reaction was immediate.
"Headmaster trusted HIM?"
"He’s lost his mind—"
"That’s insane—"
Leon’s jaw tightened. He looked through the crowd around the ramparts.
His eyes found Sierra.
She stood near Roselle’s side, one hand pressed to her chest.
"Sierra." Leon crossed to her. "Where’s Emilia? You were together. Where is she?"
Sierra’s body went rigid.
"I..." She looked at the ground. "I..."
Leon grabbed her shoulders. "Sierra. Answer me! Where is my sister?"
Roselle’s hand came between them. "Leon. Let her breathe."
She kept her hand on Sierra’s shoulder, voice softened. "Sierra. What happened?"
Sierra took a breath that shook on the way in.
"When we were moving to the ramparts, more beasts came. Too many. My mana was almost gone." She pressed her lips together. "Emilia stepped in front of me. She protected me. She got hurt doing it."
Leon’s face had gone pale.
"Where is she now."
"Alden." Sierra hesitated on the name. "He took her. Said he’d get the injured somewhere safe."
"Ramparts?"
"...The lecture hall."
Silence.
Then the crowd around them found its voice.
"The lecture hall?"
"He was supposed to take them to the ramparts—"
"That was the Headmaster’s direct order! Why would he take her somewhere else unless—"
"Unless it was his intention all along. What if he planned this, taking advantage of the chaos?"
"An injured girl, alone with him in an empty building—"
The picture the crowd was painting assembled itself in seconds. Faces going from confused to horrified to furious in the same progression Sierra’s story always produced in people, because the story was easy to believe and the alternative required knowing Alden and none of them did.
Leon’s fists had closed. His breathing had changed.
Every rumor. Every whispered accusation. Every piece of the reputation that had attached itself to Alden’s name in the week since the incident with Sierra.
All of it arrived at once.
"I’m going."
Seris stepped into his path. A translucent crimson barrier rose between them.
"Leon. If Darius assigned him that responsibility, there’s a reason. We need every capable fighter we have. Our priority is the Core."
Leon stared at the barrier.
"My priority," he said quietly, "is my little sister."
Golden mana burst from him.
BOOM!
He drove through the gap Seris had already made. The barrier dissolved before the contact, opened just enough that he went through without getting hurt, which he didn’t notice and probably wouldn’t have cared about anyway.
She watched him disappear across the rooftops.
"Impulsive." A quiet exhale. "What an idiot."
Leon ran at full speed.
’Please be safe.’
His feet hit rooftop after rooftop, the academy spreading out below him, smoke still rising from the eastern wing.
’Please.’
His spell started swirling around him.
’Alden. If you’ve done a single thing to Emilia—’
He hit the last rooftop and saw Lecture Hall C below.
’I don’t care what Headmaster says. I’ll cut you down myself.’