The Unmaker

… The sandstorm wrapped around it, concealing its form in a shifting veil of grit and shadow, but Dahlia could vaguely tell: it was ten metres tall, its wings were glassy and translucent, and it had sleek, angular limbs, unlike the bulky and clumsy-looking Mutant antlion nymph she’d fought back in the undertown ruin. It was humanlike, but not human; its four arms and two legs hovering far above the town didn’t fool her for a second.

It was Madamaron, the Destroyer, and it was an evil god that’d come with its horrid spawn.

Ten, twenty, thirty Mutant antlion nymphs burst from the ground, sand geysers erupting across the town, and they each brought with them a yawning sandpit large enough to swallow an entire building whole.

Then, there was panic.

People ran in every direction, faces twisted in terror, their cries drowned out by the howling wind and the low, continuous growl of the quakes. If they ducked inside their houses, a Mutant would drag them down into the desert. If they decided to go anywhere else, more three-metre-tall Mutants wandering the streets would snatch them up by the waist and do the exact same thing, leering and growling at them the entire time.

None of the Mutants were killing anyone outright, nor was Madamaron doing anything other than hovering above the town as the eye of the sandstorm, but the Sharaji Oasis Town turned into a nightmarish landscape in an instant.

…

Dahlia leaped off the roof of the forge, her heart pounding in her chest, trying to keep her footing as the desert bucked and rolled. The sandstorm clawed at her cloak and chipped at her chitin, but she forced herself to move forward, because there—a dozen metres down the street—was a sinkhole opening right in front of her, the edges crumbling into nothingness.

A little boy was sliding down the hole, his small hands reaching for anything to hold onto. She lunged forward with all the strength she had, her locust greaves making her explode off the ground, and for a brief second her claws brushed his fingers—then the sinkhole gave way with a sickening lurch and he slipped through her grasp. His scream was lost in the storm as he tumbled into darkness.

She slid to a halt at the edge, her breaths heavy, her hand still reached out into the air where he’d been. The pit below was beyond deep, and the shifting sands already covered the hole the boy disappeared through.

…

Movement to her left caught her attention. She spotted the town chief and her daughter running away from a Mutant strutting towards them—all of the nymphs in this town were much smaller compared to the one she and Alice had killed back in the undertown ruin, but they were still Mutants at the end of the day. To her surprise, she hardly hesitated; she dashed forward, grabbed the two girls by their wrists, and dragged them through an alley as the Mutant pounced on them.

She didn’t try fighting. She could barely see through the storm as was, so she kept running, running, and running, as the fate the little boy had met befell over a third of the townsfolk as well. None were spared. Men, women, children—if the sandpits didn’t get them, a Mutant did, and every eye was wide with the realisation that there was no escape.

… Having run a full circle around the back of the forge to throw the pursuing Mutant off, Dahlia burst out of the back alley and looked up at the blurry Madamaron.

Its glassy wings beat so fast she could barely see them, but the gusts of wind and sand swirling through the air was very much real. Its burning red eyes locked onto her golden ones, and Madamaron’s glowed with a malevolent glee that made her shudder to her core. Then, it crossed its four arms and jerked its head back, letting out a high-pitched, ear-splitting screech; it was the sound of cruel, mocking laughter, and every Mutant around the town reciprocated with their mandibles snapping open and shut.

With a final, contemptuous glare, Madamaron dove back into the oasis it’d burst through, and the rest of its brood burrowed back into the desert with four kicking townsfolk in each hand. Dahlia and everyone else standing at the edge of the oasis were blown off their feet by the cyclone that came from their retreat, and she landed painfully on her back; the winds ripping her scarf off and filling her with a mouthful of sand.

But.

Slowly, surely, the winds began to die down. The sandstorm howled for a few more minutes, and it faded just as cruelly as the quaking ceased… but the destruction remained. A hundred sandpits gaped across the town like open wounds in the earth. Dozens of sandstone buildings lay in ruins, walls crumbled into piles of rubble, and even more were half-sunken in sinkholes, immobile in the sand.

The night returned to its quiet, oppressive darkness, and after another minute or two—the sky was clear again.

Stars shone coldly down on the broken Oasis Town, and the silence that followed was deafening.

[... It must have been waiting for Alice to leave.]

[It must have known and sensed she was an Arcana Hasharana it could not beat, even with so many Mutants at its beck and call, so it sent out its strongest child as a sacrifice. It wanted her to believe it was dead.]

[Now that it knows she is no longer here—and that it is unlikely a Hasharana will return to check on this town in the middle of nowhere anytime soon—it no longer has anything to fear.]

[It retreated only because it would much rather leave some of you alive for it to continue preying on for years down the line, decades down the line, one meal at a time–]

“Mama!”

Children cried into the night, small voices trembling as they called out for their parents. Faces were streaked with sand and tears rushed all around looking for their loved ones. Nearby, people were huddled together, trying desperately to treat their wounds with whatever they could find. Others were digging frantically through the rubble and the sands, trying to pull their friends and family from beneath the collapsed buildings.

Once-vibrant cloaks and mantles were dyed in monotonous shades of blood. Faces were set in grim despair. Those who lost nobody and those who lost everyone were kneeling by the edge of the sunken oasis, hands clasped together as they chanted, prayed, and pleaded for mercy from their wicked desert god. It truly, truly seemed as though there was nowhere she could turn to where there wasn’t anyone crying, and, for Dahlia’s part… she spat sand out of her mouth and rose to her knees, glancing behind her to see the town chief praying as well.

…

Her chest suddenly felt tight as a dozen emotions exploded inside her. It was like the taut string of the dangling dagger over her head finally snapped, and before she knew it, she slapped the town chief across the face with a harsh growl.

The town chief toppled over backwards, her daughter gasping and rushing to her aid, but Dahlia grinded her teeth and felt a warm tear down her own cheek.

… The people of Alshifa never prayed and begged for mercy from the firefly.

They all went down swinging and screaming their curses at the Swarm.

The other townsfolk heard her slap. They turned and looked, eyes wide with shock, but turned away just as quickly to continue their frantic praying as she glared at them—they were more scared of their ‘god’ than they were of her, a living, breathing human with four black armoured arms who could cleave through them right here and now.

That, perhaps, was the one thing that made her more angry than anything else.

[... I must remind you, once again, that humans of this era are still like bugs under a boot,] Eria said plainly. [Though the borders of the continent are largely defended by the Seven Swarmsteel Fronts, small infestations such as the Mutant antlions still pop up in the hundreds across the continent every single day. There are not enough Hasharana to deal with them, and the result is as such—the chances of a small desert town repelling a Swarm invasion like this is less than five percent.]

[This is the surface world.]

[Three billion insects and counting just at the borders of the continent. Billions more out on the Crawling Seas, stretching out towards the Dead Continents. We know only of the Seven Great Mutants, but there are rumours of hundreds more beyond this continent that even the Hasharana cannot confirm. If humanity wishes to retake firm control of this continent, every man, woman, and child must be able to defeat at least one Mutant on their own, but the fact of the matter is, there are simply not enough systems for everyone to grow stronger the way you can.]

[Swarmsteel may be able to bridge that gap and put a weapon in everyone’s hands, but–]

This isn’t the peace I was looking for, right?

…

She felt she heard Raya and Jerie musing behind her.

What part of this is ‘tranquill’?

She felt she heard Ayla and Aylee whispering behind her.

The home I’m searching for isn’t here.

She felt she heard Amula snorting behind her, and she balled her hands into fists, claws digging into her own palms.

Tell me, Eria.

Does the ‘home’ I’m searching for exist anywhere in this world?

[...]

And when Eria didn’t answer, she let out a heavy, shuddering breath—closing her eyes as she did.

… I’ll have to make one for myself, then.

She stopped letting the chaos drown her. She opened her eyes, shook herself free from the weight on her shoulders, and clawed to her feet with a great surge of strength flowing through her veins.

Sniffling, wiping tears off her eyes, she stormed back towards the forge and ignored the chief as she passed by. Her legs felt like mush—she could see Madamaron’s burning red eyes in her head all too well, and she felt like crumbling and giving up, but she pushed anyways. She threw every ounce of strength into her legs and staggered into the forge, taking one step towards the crate of insect parts. Just one step. Then another. And another.

By the time the chief, her daughter, and Smith Jaleel rushed inside to check on her, she’d already cleaved the entire crate open to let the insect parts spill onto the ground.

[... Madamaron and its brood must not have eaten any of the kidnapped townsfolk yet,] Eria said, as she whirled and scanned the parts for anything she could use; she kicked up a bunch of locust plates and decided to start with them. [That invasion was but a mere declaration of power. It wanted to intimidate all of you. It wanted to remind you it is the true lord of the desert, so I estimate it will not be until midnight that the first of them actually begin to starve. If you can find the antlions’ hideout before then, you may be able to rescue most of the kidnapped townsfolk.]

How long until midnight?

[Five hours and sixteen minutes.]

That’s enough time.

I can–

“What are you doing, Dahlia?” the chief muttered, looking half-dazed as she gripped Dahlia’s wrist, stopping her from tossing the first plate into the fire behind her. “Leave… these things alone. Stop playing around with them. They’re torn from the carcasses of evil gods, and they breathe curses we cannot see. Cast all of them into the sand and we may yet survive the coming attacks–”

“It’s a fucking bug, and that’s all it is!”

Dahlia’s eyes twitched as she jerked her hand away, scowling fiercely at the chief. Her lips were quivering. She knew she looked like a child with tears streaming down her face, and for a brief moment she thought about snapping at the chief again—lashing out with another slap—but she managed to restrain herself at the last second.

It’d be wrong of her to get angry at any of the Sharaji townsfolk.

They’d lived decades on the surface, enduring Swarm invasion after invasion, and they’d never even stood a chance at fighting back.

But she was from Alshifa, born and raised, and though she may have been an utter failure of a bug-slayer—when had she let go of the resolve she’d used to unmake the Mutant firefly?

She’d decided not to die, didn’t she?

She’d promised everyone she’d make her own destiny, didn’t she?

“… I’m no Hasharana,” she whispered, her voice quivering as she struggled to hold her locust plates still in the fire, back turned against the chief. “I’m… weak. Slow. You think I- I don’t know how much I don’t fit in with the rest of you? My people are dead, the Hasharana want me dead, and I can’t ever get rid of my extra arms—you don’t think I know I’m stuck here and nowhere at the same time? That I don’t really, really belong here? I don’t even know how to speak your tongue. Incomprehensible. An- And I never even bothered trying to learn even though I’ve been here for so long. What a lazy, unmotivated girl, huh?”

“...”

“I know, okay? I’m lucky. I survived the Mutant firefly even though I did the least out of all of us. The rest of them, the- they actually gave their lives for Alshifa. Raya fought it for three whole minutes. Godsent talent. Issam and Amula and Jerie and Ayla and Aylee and the rest of them drew out its stamina, pushed it into a corner, and set everything up for me to- to take and steal the glory from them. Thief. If it were anyone else… if it were anyone else, they’d already be much stronger than me at this point. You think I don’t know that?”

“...”

“They died for me. All of them did. Three hundred and seventeen people threw themselves into lightning for me, and I repaid them by… what? Relaxing on the surface? Picking reeds and making living room mugs? You know, they’ll probably tell me to settle down here. Probably. After all, I’m too we- weak to do anything else. You think I don’t know that? They’d tell me to stop playing along with that damn… blasted, stupid Hasharana. They’d tell me to sit down and enjoy what I have, because this is what they died for. This is the home they died for me to have.

“Even still, I… I…

“...

She trailed off, her tears sizzling as they fell onto the glowing locust plates she was moulding in her hands, her jaw clenched harder than it’d ever been before.

“... This isn’t it,” she said, as she forced herself to look at the chief and put a shaky, trembling smile on her face. “This isn’t the ‘destiny’ I wanted to make, and this isn’t the home I wanted to live in.

“If I stay here for the rest of my life, I’ll forget who I am.

“I won’t be ‘Dahlia of Alshifa’ any longer.

“So, even if I’m no Hasharana, and even if Alice isn’t here… I’ll kill Madamaron.

“I’ll make Swarmsteel strong enough to exterminate the Swarm.”

And she wasn’t lying.

She wasn’t hesitating.

As she spoke out loud, she felt a strange calm set over her—the pounding anxiety and fear she’d been carrying on her back since waking up on the surface hadn’t disappeared, merely pushed into some dark, narrow corner of her head. It was never going to disappear, and it was never going to be easy to accept, but she was an assassin bug: she was the ‘Make-Whatever’ who carried every single corpse of Alshifa on her back.

It was do or die. Eat or be eaten. Her or the Swarm.

This was the resolve she’d let go of, and she wasn’t ever going to let go of it again.

“... If it’s Swarmsteel you want to make, then there’s something that might be of use to you.”

And, surprisingly, it was neither the chief nor her daughter that spoke up first—it was Smith Jaleel, whose face was stern as ever as he trudged towards the hatch to the cellar, at the back of the forge.

Dahlia sniffled and let go of the burning locust plates in her hands; she’d been wondering for a long time what Jaleel had been keeping down there, and the moment he unlocked the hatch with a key, the foul, acidic stench of an evil god exploded into the forge.

All of them apart from Dahlia reeled at the smell, and the only reason why she didn’t flinch was because she’d smelled it very, very closely before.

Her heart hammered in her chest, and a drop of sweat beaded down her forehead as her eyes shone with a glimmer of hope.

“The flesh has long since rotten, but that Hasharana girl spent many nights pulling it out of the rubble while you were still unconscious, and she told me to keep it safeguarded until you eventually ask for it yourself,” Smith Jaleel said, eyes narrowing as he gestured at the stairs leading down to the cellar. “Perhaps it may help, perhaps it may not—but the carcass of the Mutant firefly belongs only to the girl who tore out its heart.”