Psycher Chronicles: Chapter 12 ANTS (Patreon)

Chapter 12

ANTS

(Dr. Grier)

The stone reacted every time someone touched it, after so many years of being around the stone and enhancing her own sensitivity to the world of magic, Dr. Grier could tell at least that much, that something was happening.

Originally, the theory was that the stone generated an electromagnetic response within the body, one that resonated on some molecular level that was yet unknown to medical sciences. In fact, many cures and treatments for various cancers had come from observing and interacting with the lodestar stone.

The quick drying up and dying away of excommunicated cabal members was the first true breakthrough into cancer and the subsequent treatments.

The process was such that once cancer began, even being re-exposed to the lodestar stone would only end up with an even faster manifestation of cancer within the body. Something about being gone for too long, that once the process of the body breaking down began, it never stopped.

Five students left.

Dr. Grier watched as the second child with talent, a silent boy went over, touched the stone causing it to pulse brightly with light.

“Whoa.” The kids all called out, as once again they were all met with a bright colorful display. This time Dr. Grier noted a slight affinity towards Fire, her own element. The girl who went earlier might have had a Water or Air affinity, but Dr. Grier would have had to get one of the other cabal members to test her out fully. For now, it was good enough that these students had been identified early enough and could be brought into the fold.

While a mid-tier level talent was rare, it sadly was not enough to do much, unless one had proper control and spell knowledge.

Control was something that everyone had to work at, honestly it was harder for those who were born with immense levels of potential to gain as those that were talented could often be extremely wasteful with their energy, never knowing that often less magic was more effective in getting a desired response than throwing magic at a problem until it was solved.

Still, mid-level talents were what Dr. Grier personally considered to be uncut gems. These were the stones that with enough time and effort could be polished into nice accents to a major piece of jewelry, never enough to be the main piece on their own, they could be added to, and applied in such a way to bring out the overall majesty of a better unit.

There was more cheering, followed immediately by the pain filled cries of three other students who didn’t have any reaction to the stone.

Then came the moment that Dr. Grier had been waiting for.

The time had come for the last girl, Misha Collins, to go forward and touch the stone. She moved forward, until she was about a foot away from the stone and paused.

“Go on.” Dr. Grier said, impatience practically oozing off of her as she waited for the outcome. Then she noticed that the girl was wearing black gloves. While gloves themselves weren’t bad, they would likely mess with the level of reaction the stone would give off, completely throwing off an evaluation.

“Actually, you need to remove your gloves first, in order to the full experience.” Dr. Grier said, but as she spoke, her words laced with the power of suggestion hit the girl and seemed to roll right off of her as she continued to stare forward.

Once again, Dr. Grier felt conflicted with her lack of response from the girl. She was about to try again, when she heard the girl mutter to herself.

“Ants.”

Normally a little girl muttering wouldn’t mean anything. But the word used, and the level of concentration given by the girl to the stone caused a moment of panic to rise up in Dr. Grier. Ants? If there were any ants, then there could be a huge colony that might either degrade the integrity of the lodestar stone, or worse. Honestly the idea of a magically charged colony of ants crossed her mind, but was then cut off as most of the time any animals that made contact with the stone and then left would die out almost immediately. The idea was cancer, but for tiny insects and other creatures, such hypothesis were hard to prove.

Curious as to why an ant would be on the stone, Dr. Grier found herself getting in between the stone and the girl.

“Oh no.” Misha said, as she took an involuntary half step back.

Dr. Grier, seeing the movement out of the corner of her eye instinctively turned to face the little girl, when the lodestar stone began to glow a deep ominous red. The red was so intense that it all but radiated in the darkened room that was brought even darker, as a way to highlight when the stone made contact with an awakened one.

Dr. Grier then heard the automatic defenses of the observation lair engage.

Whirr.

Click-click.

The door behind them began to unlock, as the solid clear plexiglass screen began to close up automatically due to a disturbance being felt.

In her mind, Dr. Grier wondered how such an event was even possible, she almost moved her hand to her pocket to see if her remote control was still present, but as she shifted her bodyweight, she felt the all too familiar pull of the remote control against her skin, from within her pocket. There was another reason entirely as to why she was not reaching her hand into her pocket.

The reason was that instinctually Dr. Grier knew she would have to use her hands to cast her spells here shortly. At least, that was what every fiber of her being was telling her, as she began drawing from her internal mana reserves and instinctively casting shielding spells.

Why shielding spells exactly? Well Dr. Grier didn’t know, it was instinct more than anything really that caused her to create said shields.

Fwoom.

Her shield lit up as a bright red color in the darkened room. Fire was the worst at shielding, but fire often served as a good deterrent for stopping sentient creatures. There was also the fact that Fire was Dr. Grier’s only element that she could control with any form of consistency.

Simultaneously, as the flame shield went up, the power to the room was cut off. The emergency door that had fortunately been unbarred opened wide, revealing the only exit. The light from the exit was the most concentrated form of light within the catacombs, designed to leave everyone out one singular exit. An exit that would always be monitored and recorded for people coming and going, just in case a situation like this ever arose.

The ambient light was just enough to show the contrast in colors between the bright reddish orange color of flames, versus the almost demonic red color that seemed to be emanating from the stone.

“Kids, everyone leave here immediately.” Ms. Folk shouted.

“Yes, Leave. Follow your teacher and leave.” Dr. Grier stated, infusing as much power into her words as possible.

Dr. Grier had no clue what was happening, as far as she knew the stone did not have a melting point. The only way she herself had managed to cut off a portion of the stone was through an intense application of her own understanding of the flames. This was why she was so confident with letting the children touch the sacred relic as nothing manmade could destroy the stone. Only magicians could cut the stone, in fact to excavate the stone it was said that over a hundred mages worked in unison to break apart the entire meteorite into digestible chunks.

“Ahh!” The kids screamed as they began to panic and force their way out of the confined chamber.

“Walk, don’t run.” Dr. Grier added, once again infusing her words with the highest concentrated power of suggestion that she was capable of manifesting.

Almost immediately the children that had been desperately clawing and tackling others out of their way, began to slow down and walk towards the exit at a fast, but controlled pace.

Thundering.

The footsteps of the now restrained class of students echoed until finally the last student left. This was verified quickly by Dr. Grier who did not notice any further motion in her peripheral vision.

Finally, even Ms. Folk left, letting Dr. Grier relax a little, knowing that the teacher would not let her children come to harm. This meant Dr. Grier could turn her attention to the most important objective, namely protecting the lodestar stone from whatever was happening to it currently.

Jiggle.

To her horror, the lodestar stone began to pulse slightly, as it seemed to be coming alive.

“Playing with fire.” The words came as if spoken by someone who was speaking in a disapproving tone. Just as someone would say to a child who did something you knew was wrong, but they clearly didn’t.

Pausing for a moment, Dr. Grier turned back to see that the words came from Misha, who in all the confusion never ran away like the others.

Dr. Grier was about to yell at the girl, to tell her to leave, when she noticed something odd about the girl. She had her hands up in what looked to be a casting position, but there was something odd with her stance. Right foot back and at a ninety-degree angle from her body, as if digging in and creating an impromptu line in the sand that she will not cross. Her left foot forward, pointing directly at the now pulsing and jiggling lodestar stone.

This was the fight of a battle caster, at least it was the position that Dr. Grier herself would take if she was going to enter into a battle with another supernatural. That was the first sign that this girl was at least at the Adept level of mastery, if not far higher.

Danger.

There is an instinctual pulse that surrounds danger and dangerous events. These are the impulses that our brains innately notice, telling us to look up when we are distracted, to look to our right towards an incoming predator or speeding vehicle. These were the same instincts that were now screaming at Dr. Grier that something dangerous was happening.

There was just one problem, as Dr. Grier could feel not one, but two distinct sources of danger. As if realizing that two speeding vehicles were careening towards each other, with a collision all but imminent, Dr. Grier watched as the girl and the stone seemingly had a stare down.

In her mind she saw the two distinct objects and realized that they were the items careening towards each other.

Then the words that were muttered hit her; this little girl said that she was playing with fire. While that’s what it might look like, especially as Dr. Grier was preparing a shielding spell made of Fire, that was not what the girl meant.

Melting.

The once jiggling lump of stone now looked like it was actively melting. Then to Dr. Grier’s horror, the almost impenetrable stone broke apart and splashed out horizontally, seeming to attack and coat the thick clear sheet of plexiglass.

Fear.

Unimaginable fear hit Dr. Grier at the site of the mostly black goo that was spraying out, coating the sealed walls and melting away at the thick layer of protection. Protection that suddenly seemed to not be enough to keep back the glowing stone.

The Blob, that was the movie that came to mind to explain what she was now seeing. A mass of unknown moving material that seemingly came to life and began devouring everything before it. Something so dangerous and unstoppable that it would destroy the world. These were the innate fears that came to Dr. Grier’s mind.

Dispersal.

Then something even more shocking occurred, the little girl who had stayed behind held out her hands and did something. She cast some type of attack spell at the mass, at least that is what Dr. Grier assumed as she could feel the violent energy flow past her, and towards the writhing mass of black oozing and glowing liquid.

SHRIEK!

The attack landed, and the mass shrieked. An ear-piercing pain filled wail that sent shivers down Dr. Grier’s spine.

Hearing the sound and the response of the liquified rock, Dr. Grier felt something awaken within her. Something deep and powerful, something that called forth her magic and all but demanded that she use the magic on the child.

Predator.

That was the word that came to Dr. Grier’s mind, but words is a rather loose term. Instead, the idea was expressed more through deep seeded emotions and imagery of danger, rather than any natural words.

Hearing and feeling the suggestion, Dr. Grier turned from the pulsing remains of the stone towards the little girl. The girl who seemed to be moving her hands in another series of complex gestures.

Magic.

Maybe not her magic, but what the girl was using was clearly power on a scope and scale that was unheard of.

The little girl, despite being as focused as she was, still managed to see Dr. Grier turn to face her.

Their eyes met; all the while little Misha’s hands moved through a complex attack pattern. Her fingers glowed with an odd pink-purple light that didn’t register as any form of magic Dr. Grier had ever seen or heard about. Still despite the spell complexity, Misha turned her eyes up to lock gazes with Dr. Grier’s own.

In that moment, when their eyes met, a chill ran down Dr. Grier’s spine as it was the look of a focused master. One who was so powerful and gifted with the craft that they didn’t need to look at their casting to know where they were in their workings.

Instead, she spoke calmly, as if there wasn’t a glowing black blob that was currently melting its way through a foot thick of the toughest clear material that was available. Materials that could deflect fifty-millimeter rounds if the advertisements were accurate.

Yet, despite all that, the girl used this moment to speak to Dr. Grier.

“Take off your slave collar while you still can.” Misha said.

“What?” Dr. Grier found herself reflexively asking.

Yet, before she could ask for clarity, the girl had already turned her head to face the glowing black mass that despite having slowed down its original pace through the protective coating, was still over halfway through the protective layer.

The overwhelming sense of pressure and inescapable danger built up, as the little girl finished weaving her spell, as her hands became still. Then she felt it.

Fwa-boom!

Clothes rustling violently in the wind, the sense of an intense heatwave burning off the microfibers of her face, the way the skin on the back of her hands suddenly felt dry from prolonged exposure to heat. These were the first sensations that Dr. Grier felt.

She felt this much power, even though she was well over four feet away from the girl, but her positioning made it, so she was only a foot away from the inevitable attack path that the unidentifiable spell took.

Danger and power both warred together as she felt the unbridled power of the girl on full display. It was clear that the first attack had been a stun attack, one that was done to buy time so that a more powerful attack could be cast.

Death-shriek.

Compared to the sound made before, the cry let out this time was more of a dying whimper, than any full-fledged shriek of pain.

Pain.

Suddenly Dr. Grier felt pain in her chest. On reflex, her hand went up to touch the spot of pain.

Burning.

Only to find that the pain on her chest was physical. Her chest and now her hand both were burning as something powerful burned. Looking down, she saw and felt the pendant that she always wore, right at the spot of pain.

It almost felt like white hot magma was burning its way through her skin.

Spinning.

The pain was so intense that Dr. Grier noticed the world spinning around her. This was of course just her mind’s way of processing the fact that she was falling to the ground. Her hand still clutching the pendant that had been meant as a life saving measure, now served as a death sentence.

“Idiot.” The little girl hissed, as she stomped over, then with a quick yank, ripped the necklace off from around Dr. Grier’s neck.

Relief.

The moment the necklace was gone, Dr. Grier felt her body relax, as the source of unimaginable pain burned away.

Dr. Grier watched as the pendant began glowing brightly within her clasped hand. For a moment she noticed a wince of pain on the little girl’s face.

Shatter.

Plop.

There was the sound of objects breaking and clattering to the floor, followed by a wet squishing sound. Instinctively, Dr. Grier turned her tired head to look towards the mass of glowing ooze that had finally broken free of its container.

Seeing the ooze Dr. Grier felt fear, true fear grip her mind and squeeze. The Fear was fierce and primal that all her over taxed mind and body could do was begin shutting down, trying to forcefully purge everything that it had seen and experienced over the past few minutes.

Her spell was gone, long since dissolved when she felt her own flesh burning away above her heart.

The last image she saw was of a wave of glowing black liquid quickly pooling and flowing towards her and the little girl. Seeing the liquid, particularly from the angle of her head resting on the floor, a comment that the girl made before suddenly made more sense.

“They do look like ants.” Dr. Grier managed to say, before her mind went peacefully dark.