Thousand Tongue Mage

Despite having locks of flowing amber hair, eyelashes, and all sorts of features a human would have, something was more 'off' about Nona than any bug Zora had met thus far, and it wasn't because she wore the robes of a mage, walked with the gait of a human, or had skin made out of hard black chitin.

Appearance wasn't what made up a human.

The fact that she was speaking in the local Sterngott tongue, talking to them instead of the other way round—that was how he knew the rumours were true.

A Cicada God.

That was what 'Fate Spinner' Nona, youngest of the Magicicada Witches, was.

"... Hm," Nona hummed, tapping her chin as she looked the five of them over one by one, and everyone's spines shivered as her vertical irises landed on theirs. "Mister Tadius, experiment of the northeastern plains. Mister Evander, young warrior of the northern lands. Miss Sarius, last daughter of a mage, and… oh?" She paused, gaze lingering on Zora. "A Fabre. From that household? Darn! I was sure we killed all of you back then! Who's the real bug now, huh—"

But when Emilia exhaled shakily behind them, claws digging into Zora's cloak, the four of them snapped back to reality. They stood firm. Zora and Cecilia shouted "strike", and the spells shot forward. Julius called "forward, syringes", and the green vials soared overhead. Marcus didn't dare close the distance, but he shouted "buff", "toughen", standing before all of them as their shield—

And that made all the difference as Nona laughed "so noisy" in a horribly familiar voice, her own spell rippling away from her and deflecting all of theirs. It would've likely shattered their eardrums, too, had Marcus not stood there and absorbed the brunt of the waves.

That voice.

Zora gritted his teeth, his wand still held out in front of him as Marcus stumbled, but he knew that voice: Yanli. Thirteen years old, from the Yammei Principality in the far north. The boy she'd mimicked while they were talking through the wall.

She'd stolen the voices of their children.

"I don't wanna fight!" she said, throwing all four hands up as she grinned; a mocking, sardonic smile. "I just wanna know one thing: where's my wand that's worth more than a thousand human lives?" Then she thumbed back into the dark and misty observatory, tilting her head. "You guys came at just the right time! I just beat the Headmistress, but guess what? She didn't have my wand! It's not with her!"

Cecilia's breath hitched, but while the Witch prattled on and on, Zora started backtracking, nudging Emilia gently with his elbow.

Go, he thought. Don't wait for us. We'll buy you time to—

"You know, I'm tired already!" Nona groaned, stretching her arms and waist and making her chitin plates crack as she did. "I've spent… what? Three days just fighting all of you class by class, mage by mage! Even I get tired sometimes, so let's get this over with quickly!"

With that said, she clapped two hands together in front of her chest, two hands over her head, and it was a whisper of a roar that came out her mouth. A spell. "Friends!" she bellowed. "Help me! Hold them down for me! I don't wanna bother anymore!"

In an instant, thirty or so children made of physical debris assembled before them. They were featureless. Heartless. Still they charged at the five of them, laughing loudly, arms raised over their heads.

Even if they weren't talking, they were still using their voices, and Zora recognised each and every last one of them.

The children of Amadeus Academy.

This Witch… she can imagine recreating all of their bodies with debris?

In a panic, Cecilia "pulled" all of them back and down the stairs, yanking them away from the debris children's grabby hands. Zora's heart was still burning with energy. All five of them landed halfway down the stairs, Emilia now clinging onto his back, and the horde of children practically fell onto them from the top of the stairs. A wall of sound. A distraction.

Nona must've lied about being tired, because she'd already dashed above them, and Zora looked up just in time to see the Cicada God backflipping over their heads with a twisted, nasty scowl.

"Squish the walls!" she said, pinching two fingers together.

"Shatter the ground!" Marcus roared, stomping the stairs, and all five of them plummeted through the hole just before the walls around them closed in. They would've been crushed were it not for Marcus' quick thinking, and they all managed to land on their feet, stumbling a few more steps back along the dark, moonlit chamber.

Fourth floor. They bought themselves a second of reprieve, but not a second longer to even feel like shit about the Headmistress. Nona crashed through the ceiling and landed on the opposite end of the chamber, thirty strides away, on one knee with two hands on the ground. A groaning, cracking rain of debris followed her down, and the entire chamber rumbled. The entire fourth floor could very easily collapse at this rate.

"... Fun!" she said, laughing giddily as she snapped her head up, ignoring the debris pelting and bouncing off her back. "You guys are fast! Good eyes! Much, much better eyes than the other mages! Must be because you're young and they're old, right? I knew younger mages would be funner to fight!"

The Witch strode forward, taunting, and with a loud shout for "colour" she conjured a wave of sound that washed across the chamber walls, floor, and ceiling. The five of them just managed to stabilise themselves when they suddenly found themselves in a completely different setting: bright instead of dark, vibrant instead of dull. It was like night switched to day. Vibrating frequency turned the grey stone walls obtrusively pink, hard brown wood became sickly green, and the carcasses around them turned into pure, unidentifiable black masses.

It was 'magic'.

Only a child could imagine themselves changing the colours of a physical, existing place.

"Spin and whirl! Have some fun!" Nona cackled, waving her arms here and there, "and don't hold back!"

While the five of them were still blinking, wincing, trying not to stare at the starkly contrasting colours, Nona summoned half a dozen small cyclones of glittering, razor-sharp dust. They swept across the chamber, slicing through everything in their way—columns, walls, doors, carcasses—and each gust cut deep, sending stone flying. While Marcus cast "toughen" on all of them, Zora pushed through and flicked "counterspin" back at half of the cyclones, redirecting them into the other half to slow their movement.

If the cyclones were any bigger and stronger, he wouldn't have been able to imagine himself doing that, but at this point, he'd killed even a giant bug twenty times his size. His subconscious knew he wasn't that weak anymore.

His senses, though, were another matter altogether.

The cyclones didn't dispel. They'd slowed, yes, but as the five of them made a mad dash towards the flight of stairs at the back, none of them heard Nona dashing through the howling winds. Zora certainly heard it eventually, but by the time he whirled around, it was too late. Nona was already right behind them, one fist reared back and aiming at Cecilia's head.

"Expand!" Nona shouted, and her flesh bubbled, expanding her fist to thrice its usual size. Zora's blood froze. Even the most physically incapable Insect God was far, far stronger than the average Mutant-Class, after all. One physical punch from her and any one of them would lose their heads.

Zora cast "blockade" on the debris around them, putting a physical wall in Nona's way. She punched through it with ease, but that bought Marcus time to yank Cecilia out of the way. The Witch's attack missed. Both him and Marcus snapped their heads over to nod at Julius, and the physician was finally ready, smashing two vials of glowing green liquid onto the ground. The liquid vibrated, bubbled, boiled, before suddenly exploding into a toxic green mist that fogged visibility in the chamber, buying them more time to run away.

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They all ran an extra ten steps before Nona shouted "whoosh!" and waved her wands, ripping the mist apart. "Bouncy!" she shouted again, and right as they were about to reach the stairs, the hard floor turned rubbery and soft, making all of them trip and stumble. They didn't fall, but they were slowed.

Nona caught up with a single bounce forward, and Zora had to whirl to face her again.

We have to fight!

Zora flicked his wand into a sword, casting "strike" on it. He and Marcus swung their blades and fists at Nona at the same time, but she shouted "to the walls" at Marcus and "down" at his blade, sending Marcus flying and Zora's blade stabbing into the floor. Her claws shot at their faces. Zora's heart skipped a beat. It was only Julius dashing in with two syringes aimed at Nona's eyes that forced her to back off at the last second, but Julius wasn't done yet.

He tried to chuck the syringes at her anyways, and she countered with a "poof", making them explode in his own face.

Julius screamed.

While the physician cried and staggered back into Cecilia's arms, holding his steaming face in his hands, Marcus roared in what might've been anger, what might've been pain. The difference was indistinguishable. He picked up an entire beetle carcass and chucked it at Nona. She countered with a "go away". Zora flung half a dozen "swerving strikes" at her, trying to hit her from the side, but they didn't even put a dent in her chitin. Cecilia, too, cast "Da Capo" on the instruments and dolls she'd strewn around as they ran.

The harsh music made Nona wince for a moment, but she silenced the instruments with "shut up" and overwhelmed Cecilia's spells with her own sound waves.

It was… useless.

While Emilia had hopped off Zora's back to tend to Julius on the floor, desperately trying to get him to calm down and cast "heal" on his acid-splashed eyes, Nona continued advancing. Blocked every projectile that came her way. Laughed through every attack that would've killed any other bug. Fear and killing pressure coiled so thickly inside Zora his lungs felt tight, and he struggled to make himself breathe, make himself think.

Is there nothing we can do?

No spell she can't counter?

No 'magic' on our side?

And as Nona finally strode in front of him, he found he was unable to move.

Unable to part his lips.

Her amber, vertical irises were exactly the same as the ones that'd stared him down when he ran away from the Fabre Household ten years ago. Only, he was taller now. and every bit as powerless as he was back then.

This… killing pressure… is…

He wasn't allowed to finish his thought. She smiled softly sweet, almost like she was actually showing some sort of positive emotion, but then she tried to uppercut him—stopped only by a bloody old lady as she crashed through the ceiling, landed between them, and shouted "sound barrier" with her sword stabbing into the ground.

Nona's uppercut slammed into the sound wall, making the barrier ripple and shimmer. The chamber rumbled again. Zora was almost knocked off his feet from the sheer impact force that didn't even hit him, but Marcus caught him with "slow down" and they all skidded back, putting some distance between them and the old lady glaring straight at Nona.

On the Witch's end, this was the first time Zora had seen her twitch an eye.

"... Still alive, Headmistress?" Nona said cheerily, rearing one, two, three more fists behind her before casting "expand" on them, making them explode in size. "I thought I crushed your throat and left you for dead! So resilient—"

"What the hell are you doing here for, Zora?" the Headmistress muttered, glaring daggers back at him as she continued muttering "sound barrier" under her breath, letting the spell travel down her sword and then into the ground. "Amadeus Academy's foremost protocol during a Swarm infestation is to evacuate all students into the dormitory, and then evacuate the academy until you reach the closest borough! Have you all forgotten about your children?"

Zora opened his mouth to answer, but Cecilia staggered forward first. "Mom!" she said. "The… the kids are safe! We're planning on evacuating them tomorrow morning, so we came to get you! You! I can't believe you're… I thought you… I—"

"Leave, Cecilia!" the Headmistress snapped, making Cecilia freeze. "You weren't supposed to look for me! You were supposed to leave right after you got all the kids! Now take Emilia and all of them with you and run! I'll hold Nona back—"

Nona punched three more times, shattering the sound barrier with a gust of wind. Marcus immediately cast "toughen" and "strengthen" on the Headmistress, while Julius cast "heal" on her instead to replenish a bit of her strength. The Headmistress countered Nona's fourth punch with a last-minute "strike", and hers was far, far stronger than any spell Zora had ever cast before.

The spell hit Nona point-blank in the face, and the Witch was sent thundering back to the other end of the chamber where she slammed into a wall, through it, and brought down an entire section of the building alongside her.

"See?" Marcus shouted, punching his fists together as he tried to amp everyone up, "we can fight her! We can beat her! Julius, heal yourself and get off your ass already! Cecilia, use what little instruments there are left around here to distract her! Emilia, you stay on stick with skellyman, and I'll fight head-on with mom so we can—"

"Fly, big man!"

A spell shot out from the rubble at the end of the chamber and hit Marcus in the chest. He was immediately flung to the ceiling, no counter at hand. The Headmistress attempted to cast "silence" so Nona couldn't cast "fly" on the rest of them, but she only got half the word out before Nona screeched so loud every glass pane on the floor shattered—and a spell even the Headmistress couldn't hear herself was no spell at all.

Shit!

Marcus!

Ears ringing, head pounding, Zora managed to fling a "slow down" at Marcus,reducing his speed just enough to not break all the bones in his body as he landed with a painful thud behind them. At the same time, the Headmistress cast "burrow" at their feet, making all of them fall to the third floor before Nona could recover.

Zora, Cecilia, and the Headmistress landed softly with their wings fanned out. Emilia hopped onto Zora's back. Julius pumped drugs into his legs to turn them into crystal, so he landed fine as well. It was only Marcus who fell from fifth floor to fourth floor to third floor, but the way he groaned as he tried to crawl onto his feet told Zora he'd be fine, if not a bit bruised and battered tomorrow morning.

"Go," the Headmistress rasped, choking and panting for breath as she turned to scowl at all of them. "Don't even bother trying to fight her. Nona, the youngest of the Magicicada Witches, uses only the spells of children, and if a child believes something can be done, it can be done. She can manifest true 'magic' into reality."

"We're strong, too!" Cecilia said, hands on her knees as she pleaded with the Headmistress, eyes teary. "We can… we can work together! Fight together! We beat the giant stick bug with teamwork, we can do it again! Where's the wand? T-That wand that can kill an Insect God—"

"Listen to me, children of Amadeus Academy," the Headmistress commanded, and all four of them snapped to attention. Even Julius managed to heal his own eyes, though the skin around his eyelids were still hissing with steam. "As the Headmistress, I order all of you to…"

She trailed off as Nona started screaming overhead, shouting for the whereabouts of her wand.

"... No," the Headmistress whispered, shaking her head slowly as she lowered her wand, caressing Cecilia's cheek. "The fight between the Magicicada Mages and the Magicicada Witches should have been settled long, long ago. It's our fault we got the next generation tangled up in our mess. That's why even ants must know when to leave the anthill, and that's why I'm asking you to leave me here."

While Zora, Julius, and Marcus scowled at her, Cecilia actually grabbed the Headmistress's collar back, growling. "You're coming with us, mom!" she said. "Just… just give Nona what she wants! If we leave you behind, you'll die, and it'll be just as good as hers, anyways! So just give it! Come with us! We can rebuild, set up a new academy, and—"

"But I'm a cruel old lady," the Headmistress breathed, smiling softly. "I pity your fates, but when did I say I was going to let you kids refuse to pick up the mess we started?"

Zora remained silent, and his face was still as a pond on a windless night as he followed the Headmistress's gaze. She wasn't looking up at the hole in the ceiling, at Emilia, at him, or even at her own daughter.

No.

Her eyes were on the little conductor's baton hanging off Cecilia's belt, and now—only now—did he understand what the Headmistress was trying to say.

The wand wasn't with the Headmistress.

You…

All this time…

The wand was never on you.

That's why you didn't want us to come for you.

The Headmistress dipped her head slowly as Zora's eyes widened.

"Now get out of here," the Headmistress whispered, "but when you're ready… kill the Magicicada Witches for me, will you?"

The spell was directed at all of them, and a strong gust of wind swept them through the windows on the left, throwing them violently out of the northern building before Cecilia could even manage a final cry.

They started falling out of the northern research building, leaving the Headmistress behind with the Magicicada Witch.