Chapter 8: The Swarm

The convoy rumbled through the wasteland for hours, the armored trucks bouncing over a broken road. Through the narrow slitted windows, the recruits got their first real glimpse of the apocalyptic world beyond the walls.

It was worse than Gio had imagined.

The landscape stretched out in every direction: ruined buildings from the old world covered in moss and greenery, the skeletal remains of buildings, their windows hollow and dark. Twisted forests of trees and glowing plants. Patches of ground glowed with an eerie luminescence, pulsing faintly as if the earth itself was breathing.

The sky was weird too. It hung low and heavy, streaked with veins of sickly green and purple light that crackled silently between the clouds. The air was thick with a metallic taste that coated the back of Gio’s throat with every breath.

The other recruits pressed close to the windows with pale faces. No one spoke.

---

The convoy stopped at a makeshift outpost: a ruined building that had been partially reinforced with scrap metal and sandbags. It was a resting point, one of several scattered along the expedition route. The soldiers herded the recruits out of the trucks and told them to stretch their legs while they refueled and checked the vehicles.

Gio stepped down onto the cracked ground and took a slow breath. The air outside was heavy, saturated with unfamiliar scents, something faintly organic, like rotting flowers. He wrinkled his nose but said nothing.

The three groups naturally separated themselves. The nobles clustered together near one of the trucks, speaking in low, clipped tones with their expressions carefully composed. The prisoners loitered near the ruined building, laughing too loudly and shoving each other. The civilians hovered awkwardly in the middle, unsure where they belonged.

Gio leaned against the side of the truck and closed his eyes.

[System online.]

The words flickered behind his eyelids, faint and translucent. He opened his eyes, and the panel was there again, hovering in his peripheral vision. He was the only one who could see it. He was sure of that now.

He thought about the voices. The static. The strange name that had surfaced during his mutation.

Velithari.

What did it mean? Who... or what had spoken to him? Was it just a hallucination, a byproduct of the mutation? Or was it something else entirely?

He glanced toward Commander Darwin, who was speaking with two soldiers near the front truck. For a moment, Gio considered approaching him. But what would he say? Excuse me, sir, I think I heard voices in my head during my mutation, and now I can see invisible screens that no one else can see. Is that normal?

No. That would only draw more attention. And attention was the last thing he wanted right now.

He pushed the thought aside and looked around.

The girl with green and black hair was sitting alone on a chunk of concrete, running her fingers over the blade of her dagger. She looked nervous, her tail flicking out occasionally before she forced it to dissapear. Every time she thought no one was watching, she would let it sway behind her, just a little.

The older wolfish man approached her first.

"Mind if I sit?" he asked, his voice warm and easy.

She looked up, startled, then nodded cautiously. "Sure."

He lowered himself onto a nearby rock and extended a hand. "Name’s Kojiro. You?"

She hesitated, then shook his hand. "Melody."

"Nice to meet you, Melody. Hell of a day, huh?"

She let out a short, nervous laugh. "That’s one way to put it."

Kojiro grinned. He had an easy, disarming energy about him, one that made everybody he talked to feel comfortable and welcomed. "Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it. Or you won’t. Either way, we’re all in the same boat."

Nearby, the twins were sitting together against the wall of the ruined building. The brother, Reuben, was examining his mace with a serious expression, while his sister, Tabitha, kept flickering in and out of visibility.

"Stop that," Reuben muttered. "You’re gonna make yourself sick."

"I’m practicing," she shot back. "You’re just jealous."

"Jealous of what? Being invisible? I can already do everything I need to do."

"Yeah? Well, I bet I could sneak up on you."

"I’d hear you coming."

"No, you wouldn’t."

"Would too."

"Would not."

Gio found himself smiling despite himself. They reminded him of the kids at the orphanage, bickering over nothing, just to pass the time.

He looked away.

The nobles were still huddled together, pointedly ignoring both the civilians and the prisoners. One of them, a tall man with slicked-back hair, caught Gio’s eye and sneered.

"Don’t waste your time looking at us, slum rat," he called out. "We’re not here to make friends."

Gio’s jaw tightened, but before he could respond, Kojiro spoke up.

"Easy there, princess. Nobody’s looking to be your friend. We’re all just trying to survive."

The noble’s face reddened. "How dare you..."

"Oi! Save it for the monsters!" one of the soldiers barked, stepping between them. "We’re not here to babysit a bunch of squabbling brats. Rest up. We move out in ten."

The noble huffed and turned away. Kojiro winked at Gio.

"See? Survival. It’s all about staying alive long enough to annoy the right people."

Gio shook his head, but the tension in his chest eased slightly.

---

The convoy set off again, deeper into the wasteland.

The light outside dimmed as the clouds thickened, casting long shadows across the broken terrain. Gio watched through the window as the landscape shifted and the wreckage gave way to dense, twisted vegetation, then to stretches of glowing, alien-looking soil that seemed to pulse with a faint inner light.

Then the first impact hit.

The truck lurched violently, and a deafening THUD echoed through the metal frame. The recruits cried out, grabbing for support. Another impact. Then another. The sound was coming from above, like heavy bodies slamming against the roof.

"What the hell is that?" someone shouted.

Commander Darwin’s voice crackled through the communication bracelets. "Hostiles incoming! All trucks, stop! Soldiers, defensive positions!"

The vehicles screeched to a halt. The rear doors flew open, and chaos erupted.

The air was filled with a high-pitched, keening buzz. A sound that set Gio’s teeth on edge. He stumbled out of the truck and looked up.

The sky was swarming with them.

Wasps. Mutated wasps. They were the size of cats, their bodies glinting with a dark, chitinous shine. Their wings blurred as they dove through the air, their stingers glistening with a sickly green fluid. There were dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.

Gio’s heart seized. He had never seen anything like this. Inside District Rose, animals were rare, stray cats, rats, the occasional bird. He had only ever seen pictures of creatures like these in old books. But the pictures had never prepared him for the reality.

What are they? he thought desperately. What the hell are they?

As if responding to his panic, the system blazed to life in his mind.

[Bioforms detected! Unknown signature...]

[Compiling information...]

[Ding! Information compiled.]

[Bioform Detected: F-Rank Mutagenic Wasps.]

The text flickered before his eyes, but there was no time to process it. The wasps were already diving.

"Form up! Protect the trucks!" Commander Darwin shouted, leveling his plasma rifle and firing into the swarm. The soldiers followed suit, bolts of blue energy streaking through the air. Several wasps burst apart, their bodies raining down in chunks.

But there were too many.

The wasps broke through the defensive line and descended on the recruits.

Panic exploded.

The civilians scattered, some firing blindly, others diving for cover. The nobles screamed and huddled together, their weapons trembling in their hands. The prisoners, however, reacted with a brutal efficiency, most of them had seen combat before, and they weren’t about to die cowering.

The gigantic prisoner with the war hammer let out a roar and swung his weapon in a wide arc, crushing three wasps in a single blow. Their bodies burst like overripe fruit, spraying green goo across the ground.

Another prisoner, a lean man with a shaved head and burning eyes, grinned and raised his hands. Flames erupted from his palms, roaring to life with a sound like a furnace. He thrust his arms forward and a torrent of fire engulfed a cluster of wasps, burning them to ash in seconds.

"Name’s Blaze, baby!" he shouted, laughing as he incinerated another wave. "And this is my therapy!"

Melody scrambled back, her dagger raised, her face pale with terror. A wasp dove at her. She shrieked and transformed on instinct, claws extending, tail whipping out, ears flattening against her skull. Her dagger flashed, and the wasp fell in two pieces.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god," she gasped, her chest heaving.

"Less praying, more slashing!" Kojiro shouted, appearing beside her. He raised his handgun and fired three shots in rapid succession, dropping two wasps mid-flight. Then he drew his katana with his other hand and slashed a third out of the air. "You okay, kid?"

Melody nodded shakily. "Y-yeah."

Reuben and Tabitha were back-to-back, their weapons raised. Reuben’s skin had already hardened into stone, and he swung his mace, brutally crushing anything that came near. Tabitha flickered in and out of sight, her electric whip crackling as she lashed out at the wasps with a surprising precision that would not have been expected of a kid.

"Behind you!" she shouted, and Reuben spun, smashing a wasp that had been diving for his back.

"Thanks," he grunted.

"No problem, bro."

The soldiers fought to hold the line, but the wasps kept coming. A civilian fell, screaming, as a wasp buried its stinger in his neck. Another collapsed, convulsing, as the venom spread through his body. The ground was slick with blood and ichor.

Gio raised his plasma handgun, his hands shaking. He fired. The shot went wide, blasting a chunk out of a nearby rock.

Focus, he told himself. Focus, damn it.

He fired again. Closer. The plasma bolt grazed a wasp’s wing, sending it spinning to the ground. It was still alive, thrashing on the dirt. Gio ran forward and fired again, point blank.

The wasp burst apart.

Gio scrambled forward on his hands and knees, his eyes fixed on the small, glowing object lying in the dirt beside the wasp’s corpse. It was tiny... no bigger than a marble but it pulsed with a faint, warm light.

He reached out, his fingers closing around the core. The moment his skin touched it, a surge of heat shot up his arm, and the core dissolved into particles that sank into his palm.

[Bioenergy detected!]

[Absorbing...]

[F-Rank Mutagenic Wasp Core absorbed.]

[Replication matrix updated.]

[Bioenergy stored. Command ability available.]

Gio staggered back, his head spinning. The system was processing something, pulling energy from the fallen creature. He felt it, a sudden warmth flooding through his body, coiling in his chest like a second heartbeat.

The [E-Rank Bioform: Mutagenic Wasp] was now registered in his system.

He didn’t fully understand it. But he knew one thing: his ability was working now.

Then he heard a shout of anger behind him.

"Stay away from me, you filthy criminal!"

The tall noble with the slicked-back hair had raised his rifle, but instead of aiming at the wasps, he was pointing it at one of the prisoners, a large scarred man who had gotten too close during the chaos.

"Call me filthy again, pretty boy!" the prisoner snarled, raising his own weapon. "See what happens!"

"Enough! Both of you!" a soldier shouted, but it was too late.

The noble fired and the prisoner fired back.

The recruits who had been fighting the wasps turned in confusion as a new battle erupted in their midst. The prisoners rushed at the nobles. The nobles fought back. The civilians scrambled to get out of the way.

Gio stood frozen in the middle of it all, his plasma handgun still smoking.

This is insane, he thought. We’re all going to die out here.

A wasp dove at him, and he threw himself to the side. He hit the ground hard, the wind knocked from his lungs. The world blurred around him, gunfire, screams, the buzz of wings, and now the clash of human weapons.

He pushed himself up, his hand closing around a small, glowing object on the ground. A core. From one of the fallen wasps. It pulsed faintly in his palm, warm and alive.

The system flickered.

[F-Rank Core detected.]

[Absorb? Y/N]

He didn’t hesitate. He absorbed it.

Energy surged through him, sharper this time, more intense. The warmth in his chest spread to his limbs, and he felt something click into place deep inside him.

[Command ability available.]

His eyes snapped toward the fallen wasp nearest to him. Its body was still twitching, its wings broken. He reached out instinctively, and the system responded.

[Replicate? Y/N]

Yes.

Instinctively, he raised his hand. White energy oozed from his palm, thick and luminous, swirling into the shape of wings, a segmented body, a curved stinger. Within seconds, a glowing replica of the wasp hovered before him, awaiting his command.

It hovered beside him, its wings humming softly.

Gio stared. What the hell...

Around him, the fighting faltered. Heads turned. Eyes widened. Even the soldiers paused, their weapons lowering slightly.

The wasp... his wasp... hovered at his shoulder like a loyal pet.

"What the hell is that?" someone whispered.

Gio didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He was too busy trying to understand what he had just done.

But as the chaos resumed, as the wasps continued to dive and the recruits continued to fight, both the creatures and each other, one thought echoed through his mind.

’My ability... is Command, So I command you, Wasp... fight for me!’