Marisol’s harness dragged her ‘up’, giving her a stronger kick off the ground as she launched into a mid-air quadruple spin, blurring across the Seagrass Meadow.

  She didn’t need to charge her glaives with lightning. Her non-fatal War Jump kick smashed into one of the Imperator men’s head and she screeched to a halt twenty metres behind them, quickly tapping her gemstone three times to revert her personal gravity to ‘normal’—that was, glaives on the ground and eyes level with the Seagrass Meadow.

  Her apiclaws carved through the ground as she slowed her momentum with them, all four limbs close to the ground. The Imperator she’d kicked with the flat end of her glaive was still wobbling around, clutching his head in pain, so before any of his companions could realise what she’d just done, she did the exact same thing again: blurring forward by reversing her gravity for additional speed.

  This time, she didn’t hold back. Charging her glaives with lightning was one thing, but kicking the already wobbly man a second time with all the strength she had was another thing. She already knew he wouldn’t die. Judging by the Archive’s estimation of their attribute levels, none of them were weak. The flat end of her glaive slammed into his temple, driving him into the ground, and then she skated back to where she first started off.

  As the lady immediately dropped to her knees to check on her fallen companion, the other Imperator raised his claw at Marisol, snapping it . Her ears popped. Her senses flared. She felt like she could the shockwave flying at her before it even appeared, so she spun and kicked in place, vibrating her repelling hydrospines to send a ripple back.

  Her ripple wasn’t nearly as powerful as the pistol shrimp’s shockwave—nor could she really ‘fire’ hers in a concentrated direction while she was underwater—but what she manage was a ripple barrier as she spun in place, dispersing the non-fatal projectile with an ear-rattling warble of water.

  While the second Imperator men blinked at her, looking confused, she skated in one more time to knee him in the jaw, felling him just as quickly as the first. The Imperator lady tried to grab her ankle as she flew by, but she was too fast. Too nimble. She didn’t really even have an ankle, so she simply ended up landing on a clump of seaweed, looking directly up at her final opponent with a thrilled grin.

  Marisol thought, as the Imperator lady seemed to realise there’d be no waking up her companions anytime soon. She shot to her feet, raising her shrimp claw as Marisol gritted her teeth.

  She said none of that out loud, of course. Her words would only come out as choking, gargling bubbles, but her glaring eyes got the message across to the lady—and both of them dragged one leg back, ready to launch their strongest attacks at each other.

  The seven lighthouses built around the crater were Imperator bases. The bottoms could open up and release small vessels capable of sailing atop the ever-swirling whirlpool, and each of those vessels could lower a dozen diving bells fitted with image-transferring lenses, allowing Imperators in the lighthouses to surveil everything going on within Depths One to Three like reverse periscopes.

  Now, it was still far too early in the morning, so there weren’t any vessels and diving bells lowered into the whirlpool right now, but that didn’t stop Victor and Andres from looking down at the churning whirlpool with their plain, human eyes.

  It wasn’t like Victor could see the battle between Marisol and the new recruits—hell, he could barely see a hundred metres in front of him with the bandages over his eyes—but it wasn’t like Andres could, either. The mutations of the Imperatrix’s Hammer Shrimp Class certainly gave him a keen sense of vision, but not to the extent he could peer a thousand metres deep into Depth One where Marisol probably was.

  In that case, there was only one reason why they were standing behind the glass wall at the top of Lighthouse Seven, pretending like they could actually see anything.

  “You don’t think the lass will pass your little test?” Victor asked, both hands clasped on his walking cane. He didn’t look at Andres as he spoke. “Reina gave her a piece of skyball coral in candy form just now, so she won’t drown. I reckon she’ll drag herself back up in ten minutes.”

  “But you don’t the girl to pass my test,” Andres replied plainly, arms crossed behind his back. He didn’t look at Victor as he spoke, either. “You know, I caught a glimpse of thunder from all the way up here back when she killed the wraith shrimp, so I'm certain she’ll win. Even without using her Art, she's strong. The recruits will underestimate her in a moment of arrogance, and I reckon she’ll drag herself and the three of them back up in... around five minutes.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Victor snorted. Reina, who was still standing behind the two of them with her arms pressed to her sides, stiffened in response to Andre’s statement. She probably didn’t want her juniors to lose—especially considering this was probably Marisol’s first go at fighting underwater—but the result had been determined the moment Victor brought Marisol up to the lantern room and he saw her reaction to the whirlpool.

  Most people, new Imperator recruits included, would flinch and look hesitant at the thought of diving down there.

  But Marisol’s eyes had looked lost in the swirl of the whirlpool, almost as though she’d been thinking about how she could skate on top of it.

  The ‘test’ was really just a formality.

  “... I was the one who noticed her falling, dived in, and dragged her in ‘Black Storm’. You know how tough that is on my body? I can barely walk as I am, so why would I have risked my life dragging her in if I want her to pass?” Victor asked, shrugging nonchalantly. “Why, if she’s gonna beat your new recruits, you might as well just make her a fully-fledged Imperator while you’re at it. Take her off my hands. Just think of the Archive as a bonus y’all can use to your advantage—”

  “If you’re trying to shove her into my Imperators hoping I’ll force her to fit in with the rest of them—in turn, pushing her to adhere to our military traditions—then you’re sorely mistaken,” Andres said calmly, lifting his chin slightly. “She’s a Flower Cape. She can’t be controlled, and she shouldn’t be controlled. Free spirits like her only learn when her life’s on the line, so thank the she’s even more antsy about us and this whole city than you were when you were first assigned here.”

  “I wasn’t .”

  It was Andres’ turn to shrug. “Even if she fails the test and you pawn her off to me, saying she’s too 'weak' to be your disciple, I’ll just let her do her own thing. She’ll certainly try to dive down to Depth Eight even if she's not given permission, so if she's going to be interfering with our duties anyways, you might as well be her mentor instead of me. Flower Capes take care of Flower Capes, no?”

  Silence.

  Victor held up his smile, lifting his chin slightly as well.

  “Mentor?” he murmured, the word coming out soft and stilted. “I ain’t mentoring anyone no more, Andres. Least of all another water strider. After the last two—”

  “Felipe and Rico had never fallen prior to the moment they did, so they died. But the girl’s different, no?” Andres interrupted. “Her palms’ calluses got calluses. She’s a ‘Sand-Dancer’. She’s clawed her way to the surface after sinking once, so even if she runs straight into a bug and falls, she’ll fall right through it instead of back."

  "She's a civilian."

  "Who killed a Mutant-Class with zero military training. A once-in-a-generation talent. You remember we are fighting a losing war against the Swarm, yes? Tens of millions across the Deepwater Legion Front are at risk of getting overrun by Corpsetaker and his brood every single day, and if this city falls, we stand to lose the western half of the Deepwater Legion Front. Maybe you've gone soft over the decades, but I’ll make her fight and suffer if it means her life can protect millions. As do the other Imperators. We're not picky about reinforcements at this point."

  "She ain't at all prepared for working with you lot. She's a Sand-Dancer who's never left her shitty desert town before all this, for god's sake.”

  "And I'm saying she’s a daredevil, Chariot. Nothing like your pitiable disciples back then—”

  Victor's cane cracked the floor. “This lighthouse is too small for the both of us, Imperatrix. Perhaps you’d like to jump out the window and see the battle below the whirlpool up close and personal?”

  Another silence.

  Reina fidgeted behind the two of them, taking a step back out of caution.

  “... Hmph. You’d take up too much space yourself, too, if you weren’t on edge,” Andres said, the corner of his lips twisting into a smirk.

  Victor smiled cheerfully. “Says the man twice my size and half as broad as your mother.”

  “Just mentor the girl,” Andres muttered. “Youshe’s got the aptitude to go faster than Felipe and Rico combined, and with you still tied up by your wounds like that, we could use a little reckless water strider in our ranks.”

  “There are still twenty-one other Flower Capes across the Deepwater Legion Front. All of them may be stuck outside the city because of ‘Black Storm’ right now, but if I send the message, you know they’ll claw back here with everything they’ve got, tooth and nail—”

  “Please. Like they won’t be bedridden with injuries for an entire year after trying to force their way through the storm,” Andres said, giving his proposal a dismissive wave. “Right now, the only Flower Capes in this city are you and that girl, and you’re still pathetically weak. How many more times can you use your Art again?”

  Victor tilted his head back. “Two times. Well, it’s been two times for an entire decade, but I used it once when I dragged the girl into the city. Couldn’t have made it through the storm otherwise.”

  “So, one more time and you'll drop dead?”

  “Yep.”

  “We can’t count on you to get shit done if worse comes to worst, then.” Andres sighed, shaking his head in dismay. “As long as you’re like this, you can’t help us out by diving alongside us. You can’t go deep underwater anymore, either, so if anything out of the ordinary happens while my Imperators are down there—and strange things happen down there in the coming months, mark my words—I want a Flower Cape down there with my Imperators.”

  “So she’ll be bait in case you need your Imperators to run away?”

  “So my Imperators can be bait while runs away,” Andres said, voice low and quiet. “You Flower Capes are heroes of humanity. The people of the Whirlpool City love you. They look up to you. And since you haven’t been diving seriously for a decade now, I was thinking she could take your place as the new ‘hero’ of the Whirlpool City…”

  Andres trailed off, narrowing his eyes. Small bubbles were popping on the surface of the whirlpool directly beneath them, and Victor glanced back at Reina, nodding at her to go down and receive their returnees.

  “... Train her, Victor,” Andres said, turning around to leave the room. “After an entire decade of injury and not having used your Art, you finally used half of your life for that girl. You something in her, don’t you?”

  And there wasn’t going to be another discussion about it. The old bastard made it clear to Victor: he was the one who’d dragged Marisol in, so he was going to take care of her until the inevitable bitter end. No amount of trying to discreetly shove her off to the Imperators while staying neutral himself was going to work on Andres.

  To begin with, Andres already she was going to be an important asset, so there was no chance he’d let her get out of the city or live a quiet life as long as she was here.

  The Imperators were bastards like that, but they were also soldiers on the side of humanity like that.

  Victor sighed, leaning on his walking cane as he saw Reina running out onto the platform at the bottom of the lighthouse, receiving Marisol and the three Imperators she was dragging out of the water by the collar.

  Marisol tossed the Imperators over to Reina, crawled onto the bobbing metal platform, and while she gasped for breath—he caught her glaring up at him, shaking an angry fist as she shouted a slew of incomprehensible words.

  He was pretty sure she was saying something along the lines of ‘I want my Symbiosteel back’ or ‘I want my mama’s book back’, but he’d rather not strain his throat and shout anything back.

  Thousand-Tongue Mage is set thirty-three years before the events of Storm Strider, and it follows the story of a language arts teacher who gets a cicada class! As usual, all of my stories can be read completely standalone, but considering the Thousand-Tongue has been mentioned a fair few times in this story already, you'll pretty much be as knowledgeable as you can be going into that story!

  ! The link to the Discord server is with over four hundred members, where you can get notifications for chapter updates, check out my writing progress, and read daily facts about this insect-based world!