The Unmaker

… Little Dahlia sits on a chair upon a chair, just to get her eye level with the table. Her mother sits on her left, her father sits on her right. Today, for little Dahlia’s ninth birthday, they are teaching her how to make a paper spray explosive.

“It’s easy once you understand that all bombs function basically the same,” her father says, as her mother runs her hands through the scattered insect parts and checks to see if the edges are sharp. Little Dahlia looks up at her father, puzzled. “The base component for all bombs include three items: two extracts from a bombardier beetle that serve as binary chemical agents, and then a glass partition that will shatter once you throw the bomb to let the extracts mix together. As long as you have all three, you can make a bomb out of anything, anywhere you want. Watch.”

Little Dahlia watches as her father folds the two semi-spherical bodies of the bomb out of soft ant carapaces, before pouring a sickly yellow liquid into one half and a beautiful blue liquid into the other. His fingers move slowly, his hands are delicate as he places a glass pane over one half before putting the two together. Then he binds both halves with a simple lac bug glue, brushed over with a small wooden stick. Else his fingers would get too sticky and he wouldn’t be able to throw the bomb.

He refuses to hand the bomb over to little Dahlia when she cries for it, saying it is too dangerous, so he would do the demonstration. He aims for the flower field outside the window, and throws. His aim is off. The bomb explodes over the kitchen basin and the ceramic cracks, leaking water everywhere.

While her father curses and runs to get a rag, her mother taps her shoulder and whispers in her ear.

“Your papa is too smart. I don’t understand half of everything he says. All I do is pour these two things into these two things, put glass in between, and then for some reason it’ll just blow,” her mother says, guiding little Dahlia’s hands so she could make her own smaller, makeshift paper bomb. “I don’t know if this knowledge will be useful for the Bug-Hunting School, but there’s more than one way to fight a bug. Sometimes, you have to be a bit creative and surprise your enemy–”

Her bomb explodes on the table, spraying paper everywhere, and little Dahlia starts crying because she feels a little dizzy. The sharp sound hurt her ears. Her father and mother pat her head to comfort her between running around the living room, trying to clean everything up.

A bomb is the second thing little Dahlia learns how to make with her own two hands.

- Scene from Sina Household past

The sewage room was dark, but not so dark firefly light from the surface far above couldn’t reach in soft, misty rays.

Lines of crates dangled on frayed ropes over her head. Carts and trolleys and cans of unwrapped garbage lay spilled and scattered along the moist cobblestone walls, but between the unpleasant smells of rotten vegetables and decomposing ceramics, Dahlia felt a little sting on the tip of her outstretched tongue, between her parted lips—what tasted like burnt and charred organic matter, coming from a particular pile of trash a few metres off to her left.

She knew the source of this scent, strong and pungent enough to knock an eight-year-old out cold with prolonged exposure.

I need… that thing.

Tearing her eyes away from the lifeless bug trader, she crawled over to the pile of trash with her stomach glued to the ground, careful to keep her clothes from rustling. She wasn’t entirely sure how sensitive the cave cricket was, but it had to be suspicious, or else it wouldn’t be standing guard before the ladder like it was waiting for something. Sharp rocks scraped her bare stomach as she crawled, and she couldn’t whimper even once unless she wanted to die.

Eria—or, at least, the projection of the little black bug that wanted to be called that—skittered ahead of her to stand atop a particularly foul-smelling box made of bolted wood and metal latches. Since the projection wasn’t real, Eria couldn’t just help her open the box, but pointing out its exact location was already more than enough help.

With her heart in her throat, she grabbed the box tentatively and pulled it towards her, pulling the lid slowly open to find six small coloured vials within.

[Pale water alcali and yellow gum benzoin, the two extracts that make up a bombardier beetle’s noxious spray. Very good catch,] Eria commented idly, as she scooped up the vials and lay them gently on the ground next to her, hands now searching the trash heap for whatever she could use for the body of the bomb. [I am surprised you managed to pick the scents out from all this junk, though. Is it a common smell in Alshifa? Even experienced bomb smiths on the surface would have had some trouble doing what you just did, so–]

“Can you find me something… something hard, but malleable?” she whispered, changing the topic as she kept stealing peeks at the cave cricket. “Also, um, something… easy to shatter. Like a thrown-out stick of wax or a glass pane about the size of my palm. And, if possible, I want some sort of… liquid resin. But just a normal tying band would also do.”

[As I am not currently fully integrated with your body, I can only see what you see, hear what you hear, and smell what you smell. It will be difficult for me to locate something you do not know the whereabouts of.]

She blinked, her hands stopping searching for a moment. “So… what can you do?”

[Injecting low dosage of perception-enhancing compounds.]

There was a warning, but she was hardly prepared for it. It was like someone suddenly shoved a knife made of ice through the back of her skull and her world flashed white and blue—her muscles electrifying, her pain receptors amplifying, her blood running cold in her veins and her airways unclogged by a burst of air—but then she blinked again, and it was like she was seeing the whole world through a bug’s curved compound eyes.

Her field of vision was wider, longer. The ground looked distorted and the ceiling appeared higher than usual. Even the sounds of sewage water rushing behind her felt a little calmer, like the world was moving in slow motion.

Also, she immediately wanted to hurl, but she stopped herself before she could make a big fuss and make any noise.

[... There are sheets of pliable blue-horned beetle carapace on your left, four blocks of dehydrated wax glass right in front of you, and a ball of reed yarn dangling off that stick over there,] Eria said, listing everything off as it teleported around, waving at her atop one item at a time. [You undertowners discard a lot of useful things, do you not? Some of these items are still perfectly usable. They would sell for quite a fair bit on the surface.]

With a quiet grunt, she ripped the ball of yarn down and dragged in the pliable carapace.

“But if they hadn’t been discarded, I wouldn’t be able to use them now,” she mumbled.

Sweat poured down her brow as she folded each beetle carapace into half spheres, using her knuckles to press out all the unwanted dents and lumps, and then she pressed two halves together to see if they’d fit. Once she was certain they’d hold, she started biting the corks off the vials, asking Eria to keep track of which vial contained which extract. Their colours were quite stark in contrast—one azure blue and one sulphur yellow—but now she was too focused on snapping the wax glass into perfect circles with her hands to keep an eye on them. Each crack that came from the wax glass breaking made her wilt a little, but thankfully the cricket was standing just far away enough. It didn’t hear her do anything.

Okay. The shells are done. I have six halves, so I can make three bombs and that’s… it. But each bomb’s going to have twice the explosive power of the usual ones because there’s a lot of bombardier beetle extract here, so I can afford to put more extract into each one.

Are three bombs going to be enough to take the cricket down if I throw them directly at its hypersensitive legs, though?

…

“Can’t you read my mind?” she asked softly, her chin tuckered so far down it was almost touching her chest. Her hands were trembling as she tried pouring the extracts into her first two halves. “If you’re inside me and you’re some sort of super incredible Swarmsteel, then, you can probably hear my… my ‘mind voice’, right?”

[Normally, I would be able to hear you even without requiring you to verbalise your thoughts, but it is as I said. Due to certain complications, I am not currently fully integrated with you,] Eria replied calmly, watching her place the wax glass onto one of the halves before pressing both together, tying them up with several cords of yarn. [Unfortunately, you will have to continue verbalising all your thoughts until I am integrated, which should not take much longer if we continue conversing and our synchronisation rate increases. With that said, what is the question you wanted to ask?]

“Oh. So that’s why. I… um, I just wanted to know if three of these bombs would be enough to take down that cricket if I throw them at it directly–”

[No.]

“... No?”

[Cave crickets may not be known for their robust chitin and strong musculature, but you must remember you are facing a giant insect, and not some lowly rabble bug,] Eria explained. [Its toughness must not be underestimated. A regular blade would not even be able to cut through its unprotected muscles, let alone its chitin. Furthermore, they are nocturnal and highly adapted to scavenging in enclosed spaces like this. You may be able to hit it square on once with your first bomb, but the moment it realises the bombs do little damage, it will not hesitate to pounce straight in for the kill–]

“So what if I do this?”

She demonstrated, filling the rest of the bombs up in a particular pattern before binding the halves together with more yarn—and Eria stood perched atop the first one she completed, mulling in silence for a little longer.

[... It could work, but it would require more courage and precision on your end than I would like you to rely on,] Eria finally said, as she took it as her confirmation to slowly claw to her feet. Having spent the better half of the past hour laying on her stomach, she immediately started wobbling and had to stabilise herself by leaning against the wall; Eria tried to argue with her. [There is a safer method. Now that I know the exact type of bomb you have made, it is feasible if you do not kill the cricket at all. Throwing all three of them point-blank into its legs will disorient it long enough that you can circle around it, get to the ladder, and climb far enough that it would not be able to detect you by the time it recovers.]

Cold slithered through her gut at the mention of a path that didn’t require her to face the cricket, but she found the courage to shake her head quite firmly.

“I… will kill it.”

[Even though you were already so disgusted at the sight of something as small as me? It is not necessary for you to engage this cave cricket in battle. There will be more opportunities for you to demonstrate your prowess in safer environments, once you have checked your status, once your system is fully integrated and you can make the most out of it–]

“If I don’t kill it here, I’ll never be able to face the mister after I die.”

[...]

“Besides, you… you were the one who said it, right?” she said, managing a small, quivering smile, as she parted her legs and reared her left hand back; gripping her first bomb as tightly as she could. “You said it. Remember. I can’t… I can’t beat it in a battle, so I won’t turn it into a battle."

With the hand holding her other two bombs, she turned the dial on the pocket watch behind her waistband.

She would end this in one minute.

With an overhead throw, she sent her first bomb flying from her left hand, the sphere detonating and scattering beetle shrapnel in a small radius around the cricket’s forelegs. The claustrophobic walls transformed the sewage room into an echo chamber of scrapes and screeching as the cricket raged, darting back from the site of impact as its antennae swiped the air in front of it.

Tick, tock. Ten seconds passed it tried pinpointing the exact location of the thrower, and on the fifteenth second she took a step back herself and clapped her hands, stomping at the same time.

The vibrations travelled fast, and the cricket noticed. Dark, beady eyes locked onto hers, and though she knew it couldn’t see out of them, it didn’t make her feel any less cowardly.

[Get ready, Dahlia!]

The moment it realised her bomb had barely left a scratch on it was the moment it stopped being so cautious. It still didn’t have a good grasp on her strength, she was sure, but at the very least it knew it had to be faster. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be trying to engage it from afar.

So, it reacted accordingly. Thirty seconds passed. Batting the shrapnel on the ground away with its antennae, it pounced right at her—crossing ten the twenty metre gap between them within a single second.

Just as she predicted as well.

With an underhanded throw, she chucked her bomb to the frayed ropes overhead, a explosive flash of light accompanying the fan of shrapnel slicing through the ropes. The first falling crate missed its mark, and so did the second, the third, but the fourth crate fell head-first onto the cricket; this one dealt damage. Mounds of spiky metal slag cut across its chitin, falling between its muscular joints, slowing it down.

It was a living being, still.

Forty seconds passed. The heavy crate landing hard on its head slowed it down more than she’d thought, so she managed to pick up a plank of wood to use as a shield. Her hands were sweaty. There was a storm in her ears. The cricket, no longer unsure, pounced straight at her in pure, unadulterated rage; its body swept through the remaining crates that’d missed their mark, and its antennae were fanned out in front like they were going to spear through her chest.

The moment its antennae slashed through the plank and cut across her forearms—she had to bite down a scream—she tossed her final bomb straight into its mouth.

Its mandibles closed on it immediately, and the fiery explosion threw her violently back, eviscerating the cave cricket from the inside-out. Annihilation. One second its body was tight, compact, its adaptations perfectly suited for its environment, and in the next its internal organs burst through its chitin in a gory splatter of oil-like blood and digestive fluids.

There was no screech. No dying throe. It went out just as it’d arrived—that was, without any sound whatsoever.

And, while she lay flat on her back with her fingers still gripped around the plank of wood–

Ding!

One minute passed, and her pocket watch stopped ticking down.

She tossed the plank, hugged her own bleeding forearms, and gnashed her teeth so hard she felt they might just start cracking.

[... Well done,] Eria said, waving at her from atop the dead cricket’s head and beckoning her to come closer. [It was a well-planned feint. You put extremely little amounts of bombardier beetle extract into the first two bombs to make it believe the bombs are harmless, before feeding it the third bomb with over eighty percent of the remaining extract. Wonderful. Your artillery accuracy is not that much lacking, either, if you almost managed to hit its legs directly with that first bomb.]

She exhaled sharply through her nose and tried to talk through the pain, though with a hundred emotions swirling through her chest right now, she could only really manage a quivering smile.

“I… I killed it?”

[Yes. You killed the giant cave cricket. Now, it is but only one of the weakest giant insects out there in the world, but killing one without engaging it in direct battle is a great achievement nonetheless. Now, because you have slain a giant insect, you can increase your basic attributes by gathering points from the slain insect. All you have to do is–]

“I did it!” she cried, tears squeezing out the corner of her eyes as she crawled onto her knees, panting and coughing and hugging herself even tighter as she tried to contain her shivering. “I… I killed it! I won! That’s… you know, I don’t think any student in Alshifa has actually killed a giant insect before! Sure, we get called out to get rid of tiny insect dens here and there during training, but… yes! Gratitude! You really are useful, Eria–”

[Unmake the cricket and eat its flesh.]

…

“... What… What did you say?” she stammered, lifting her head slowly to stare at the little black bug. “You want me to… what?”

Eria didn’t miss a beat as it jabbed the cricket carcass with its pointy leg.

[Eat the cricket.]