Chapter 18 - Sleep

“Crap,” said Chugol, “This really isn’t good.”

Chugol witnessed the announcer fall off of her floating podium. Chaos raged around him as throngs of people toppled over themselves in search of exits they could no longer pass through.

Chugol didn’t even bother attempting to break the walls down. Blasting through by force would pose too much of a risk to the crowd, and demolition was more Teek's domain anyway.

“Hey, Teek,” Chugol said into his earpiece, “We’re gonna need that backup immediately.”

<Roger that.>

“Now what can I do to calm this chaos?” he asked himself as he was narrowly avoiding being trampled over.

Suddenly, several people collapsed around him.

“Ah. Another savant,” he said, “Great.”

He made his way over to one of the collapsed people and checked his pulse. After he confirmed that he was alive, he gently slapped his face, “Hey. Wake up.”

“Just a couple more min… minutes…” he tossed and turned for a moment, only to immediately fall back asleep.

A few more people collapsed, and Chugol saw something fly at his face at a high speed. He caught it between his fingers just before it could reach his eye.

It was a dart of sorts, made entirely of Arima radiation.

“We have our culprit now, at least.”

The dart disintegrated into thin air in his hand.

An experienced Ranger normally develop the skills needed to analyze the situation when dealing with an unknown threat. It did no good to blindly charge into it with no information, and this went double for Chugol, who was severely lacking in raw power.

He scratched his head, thinking of how he would identify his opponent.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he spotted a Trachan balled up in his seat, picking at the exoskeleton covering his arms.

Trachans have four thin arms and four thin legs, paired with four eyes, two of them being for daylight, and the other two for dim lighting. They are the only sapient species of invertebrates known by the Galactic Coalition. Rather than skin, they have a hard, thick exoskeleton covering most of their bodies.

“Hey, you, Trachan!” said Chugol.

“Who? Me?” the Trachan stopped picking at herself for a moment.

“What are you doing? Why are you picking at your shell like that?”

“That’s kind of a rude question, isn’t it?” said the Trachan.

“Could you just tell me? I thought it was taboo for Trachans to do shell maintenance in public.”

“Huh? Oh, I guess you’re right,” the Trachan stopped picking at his shell, “Well, I got hit with this sharp pain, and it reminded me that it was about time for me to molt… I think.”

“There’s no way that’s all that’s going on here,” Chugol interjected, then took a moment to collect his thoughts. “This is quite strange. In the first place, why aren’t you running away? Isn’t this concerning to you?”

“I mean… I guess it is. Molting takes precedence, though!” he said, beginning to scratch his hard armor once more.

“Cut that out!” Chugol yelled, “I mean it.”

The Trachan stopped.

More and more people began to collapse around the stands, but there wasn’t a single Trachan or Mahoan that fell to the ground.

Chugol sat in deep thought, closing his eyes.

All creatures, no matter how sapient, have irrefutable instincts, normally guided by chemicals and signals throughout the brain.

There were very few chemicals that had an effect on all species, fewer still that would cause such a reaction in invertebrates specifically.

Chugol wasn’t positive, but all of the evidence pointed towards one thing.

“Melatonin,” he said as he opened his eyes again.

“Huh?” said the Trachan.

In most vertebrates, melatonin regulates circadian rhythms and sleep cycles. However, in some invertebrates, particularly arthropods, it’s linked to their molting cycles. An excess amount, especially one that’s enough to knock a Veetan out in an instant, would surely cause one to feel unbelievably uncomfortable in their own shell.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Chugol, “Where do the bigshots normally sit around here?”

“Up there.” He pointed towards an elevated room opposite the entrances. 

“Thanks,” said Chugol, “I’ll be off.”

“Uh, yeah, no problem.” The Trachan began fidgeting with the shell covering his arms again, “See ya.”

“You should get somewhere safe,” Chugol said as he bolted off. He turned around to give the Trachan one final reminder, “And quit messing with your armor! You probably don’t need to molt!”

Chugol continued on the path to the other side of the stands, pushing through as many people as he needed to.

The closer he got to the VIP room, the denser the concentration of sleeping people became. Chugol did have a creeping suspicion as to where the assailant could be, and this served to confirm his hunch.

He crawled up the stairs leading to the room. Laying just outside of the doorframe were two guards, completely unconscious. 

He walked past them and steeled himself as he entered the room.

There were dozens of people sleeping in their chairs in front of the window. The staff set aside for tending to the VIPs’ needs were also knocked out.

Excluding Chugol, there was only one person still standing in the room – a short Trachan holding a cylindrical tube of sorts up to his mouth. The tube was halfway hanging out of the window.

“I figured I’d find you here,” said Chugol. He made sure that his armband was in plain view.

“A Ranger already?” said the Trachan in a deep, raspy voice as he stepped away from the window, “How did they get through all the hoops so fast? Patipay said it would be a few hours!”

“I’d suggest that you turn yourself in now,” said Chugol.

“There’s only one of you!” the Trachan hissed.

He held the tube up to his mouth again and blew into it. A dart made of Arima radiation flew out of it and rapidly made its way towards Chugol’s head.

Chugol didn’t dodge, and instead took the dart head on. It pierced him right in the center of his skull.

“So much for Ranger,” the Trachan grumbled, “That was easy.”

The Trachan waited, expecting Chugol to fall over any second.

But he didn’t.

“You know,” said Chugol, pulling the dart out of his forehead, “I was taking a lot of risks with this. Glad it paid off.”

“H-how are you still standing?”

Chugol began slowly walking towards the Trachan.

“First risk I took was coming here in the first place. Didn’t even know for sure that you’d be here, but sure enough.”

Chugol continued marching towards the frightened Trachan. 

The Trachan blew out another dart, only for it to be caught effortlessly between Chugol’s fingers and flicked aside.

“The second risk I took was assuming that your Study revolved solely around melatonin. The third was assuming that you increased melatonin production in your victims rather than forcing it directly into their system.”

Another dart flew out of the Trachan’s Manifest, which Chugol caught again. The next two that he fired off had similar results.

“Fourth, I wasn’t quite sure if you would be stronger than me in a head-to-head confrontation. Looks like I don’t need to worry.”

Chugol pulled out a small, hexagonal box, no more than fifteen centimeters across, from his belt. He pushed a button on it, and it began floating in the air, following him closely. He dragged his finger across the top of it as he walked, and an aperture covering the entire top surface of it opened.

He reached his hand inside of it, and pulled out a pistol, a similar model to the one that Quin used on Gaia. This was how a Ranger used a Little Room.

The pistol was far too long to be able to fit into the dimensions of the Little Room, but the space inside of it was larger than the outside by a significant margin. From the outside, the Little Room was only around fifteen centimeters by ten centimeters, but the inside had nearly an entire cubic meter of space. 

“The fifth one was hoping that you’d be stupid enough to attack me directly when I haven’t even received orders yet. Don’t you know that we’re normally not allowed to get involved? Anyhow,” Chugol pointed his pistol at the Trachan, “You’re under arrest, or whatever.”

**

The petals of Ashur’s Manifest flew out toward Patipay. The streaks of light trailing behind them were all that could be seen with a naked eye.

A frightened Patipay threw his fist into the ground below him, and the dirt surrounding the impacted raised upward, forming a circular wall that covered his hole body.

The petals slammed into the wall, barely making a scratch on the surface. They bounced off of the hard dirt, but they weren’t done. 

They spun out upon the ricochet, but quickly stabilized themselves mid air. They streamlined back towards Patipay and hit the wall once more. This time, small cracks were made on the wall as the petals bounced off again. 

The cracks in the wall slowly started mending themselves, but it couldn’t reach a fully-repaired state before the next barrage.

This process was repeated over and over again. Ashur didn’t move his body much as his Manifest unyieldingly collided into the wall. He adjusted his glasses as he approached Patipay’s position.

Meanwhile, Quin’s hands were full with his own opponent. 

Lasia flicked her fan into the air, and a dozen ice crystals formed around her.

“Is that your only move?” asked Quin, sarcastically.

“It’s more than enough to deal with an amateur like you,” said Lasia as she swung her fan down, causing each crystal to fly towards Quin’s general direction.

He was aware that he couldn’t dodge all of them, so he picked up a club from the ground and held it up. He had seen a Savant, or at least someone that he assumed was one, use completely ordinary weapons in a fight against Rangers, so there was no reason for him to believe that he couldn’t, too.

He sidestepped several chunks of ice, but the last one was heading straight for him.

He readied the club, holding it from both ends in an attempt to block, but the mundane wood of the weapon was no match for a Savant’s power. It snapped in two with no resistance, and the ice continued on its path unabated.

Crismon liquid filled Quin’s vision as the cold, hard ice cut into him.