Chapter 228: Save the Children

Chapter 228: Save the Children

Susan sighed and corrected herself. "You realize you should still be a child, right?"

Bee shrugged, thinking of her few friends back at home that she hadn't talked to in years. What were they doing right now? Probably gossiping about boys and whatever people her age normally did. She didn't really know at this point. She sighed. "I suppose so. But I had to grow up fast."

"Bee. I understand it was hard, believe me. No one can even imagine what you went through. But just because you had to grow up fast doesn't mean anyone else should.” Susan leaned back against the spire. “Arthur looks at you and sees someone he's proud to work with. But he also sees his own children. They’re your age, you know. He sees what you should be, how carefree and happy you should be. Not the ball of stress you've been ever since we've known you.

“You've done things that no 13 or 14-year-old should ever be able to do. And it's impressive as hell, not to mention terrifying. But you should never have needed to do this in the first place. And just because you can do it doesn't mean that Nighty Knights should as well.”

Bee mulled over the words in silence for a moment before Susan continued. “Unlike Arthur, I was there when Void first started training them. And do you remember how he started? Void played with them. It was a game, a way to work off their extra energy. Eventually, they learned actual technique and started playing soldiers. But that's all they really are doing. They're playing soldiers. They're imitating their parents and the people they look up to. All children do that. But just because they're good at acting doesn't mean that we should listen to them, or treat them like they actually are soldiers. When a child finds a stick and pretends it's a sword, and they march around the house, we don't then give them an actual sword and tell them to go kill people."

Bee clenched her jaw, "They still had every right to protect their home. Especially after everything they’ve been through. I will not deny them the ability to defend what they love."

Susan let out a long breath before starting to explain in a measured tone. "You're right when it comes down to it, and there's no other choice. If things get serious, they may need to grow up fast, and at that point they can make a difference. Well, some of them can. Some of them are just simply too young. But not like this. Not unless it’s a last resort.

“The army that’s coming at us? We don’t know their numbers, but there is no way they're prepared for our level advantage. With our preparations, our sabotage will hit them so hard in this forest that we will probably outnumber them by the time they reach the wall. By that point, they’ll be destroyed, and there will be no retreat. Overall, this is a minor battle that will probably be the first of many. And it’s one we will win. We will crush them utterly, and the king will have no choice but to despair. And that's even before we consider Void returning." Susan gave Bee an even look. “This is not a situation where they need to grow up. Where they will be standing between their families and destruction.”

Bee sighed, slowly letting her anger go and seriously considering her friend’s words. Maybe she had been wrong.She had gotten so used to everything being a life and death struggle that she had forgotten what it was like to exercise moderation. This conflict? Susan was right. Even if there was an army at their doorstep, they had prepared for this and seen it was coming. She had people around to help her now. People who knew what they were doing. Compared to a Lieutenant destroying the world, a city’s destruction, or her imminent death by demon, this was a situation they were actually prepared for. At the very least, it had a ways to go before getting out of hand completely.

She breathed out a long breath and finally looked down from the stars to meet Susan's eyes. "I suppose you're right. I probably need to apologize to Arthur. And a lot of other people.” A slight smile quirked the corner of her lips. “Perhaps he'd take a horse as an apology gift."

Hm. That was interesting. My processors usually didn't play tricks on me. False positives when it came to movement for my sensors were extraordinarily low, and there's no way this sensor would be triggering all at once just because of some light-based phenomenon. It only took me a 2.1 more seconds to confirm the fact that I had actually seen something. The pile of rocks shifted again, slowly, as if I were watching a child's block tower collapse in reverse. The stone pile reached up and up, stones stacking until it was a towering 12ft tall. At that point, it stopped growing, and the base split into two pillars.

Rocks continued to gather to either side of the tower as they started to extend into two long arms. It took nearly two minutes and 42 seconds before the transformation was complete. Then, once it was fully formed, it took a thundering step forward.

That was odd. Looking around, I saw that several other rock piles had done something similar in the few minutes I had been watching. Around the village, nearly two dozen of these stone monstrosities slowly made their way forward. I looked over to the cave all the snowmen were hiding in and realized I couldn’t easily detect its entrance anymore. They had stacked several huge boulders inside the cave mouth, blocking the way.

Suddenly, the old crone’s question made a lot more sense. She was asking if I wanted to stay with them in the cave where it was safe. That was rather kind of them to offer me shelter. After all, I was a complete stranger they'd only met earlier today. Perhaps they did appreciate my cleaning. Maybe I should have taken them up on their offer.

I sat in the center of the village and watched as the stone piles slowly made their way toward me. Judging based on the trajectories of all two dozen, they were headed directly for me, not just the village in general. Thinking about the mess each one of their steps would leave in the newly leveled streets made my bristles curl. And what would happen if they stomped through one of these fragile huts?

I decided I was going to do something about this. Activating my Thrusters, I lifted off gently and shot towards the edge of the village.

The trajectories of the rocks shifted to follow me. However, the ones on the other side of the village were still passing directly through it as if they didn't even register the huts as obstacles. This was going to be tricky to make sure that the village wasn't damaged. I moved far away from the village in an attempt to lose the rock monsters. But even from a long distance away, I could feel all their trajectories shifting to follow me. How were they tracking me?

I had a few ideas. They had latched on to me even before there was motion. So clearly, they must be able to see me or sense me in some other way besides sight. Perhaps it was due to the concentration of energy in my batteries. But how could they tell?

The other questions was how they hadn’t detected the villagers. If these rock monsters were actually tracking me by some method other than sight, then they must have also locked on to other things besides my energy signature. Perhaps my energy signature was just their primary target for now, and they would move on to something else later. But that was something I would have to figure out after I had saved the village.

I navigated back toward the clusters of rocks. Once I got close enough, I started to move in an arc around the village, gathering the golems with me and pulling them around the outskirts of the village. I carefully planned my flight path to pull them together and away from any huts or roads. It was tricky to get the balance right, requiring a lot of minute speed and angle adjustments. If the village hadn’t been up against a mountainside, I don't think I would have been able to manage it. But after a decent amount of effort, I had the crowd of rock monsters following along behind me out of the village.