“We can’t run away!” Josephine must’ve read Jasper’s mind. “This thing will fucking fly and block us off.” She was casting strings of fire at it whenever Maria was knocked off-kilter.

Neither of them seemed to be accomplishing anything. The beetle was probably wearing them out first, too. It had the same purple eyes as all the small ones.

“Brazul.” Cody casted a strength enchantment and ran in with his sword. Jasper looked around and saw several small brown cores laying about on the ground.

The beetle swung its horn out as Cody approached, sending him flying off in the other direction. “Borduku!” he chanted protection on himself before bodying the ground.

Jasper looked over at Josephine’s fire, brushing over and under the beetle in streaks that never caught. Still, it had to be doing something.

“Keep heating it up Josephine!” Jasper shouted as he started calling Jorgien’s number again. Thankfully, Maria was good at playing distraction and Cody was getting back up.

Jorgien answered, “Jasper, I’m three minutes—”

“How do you rapidly cool something? If that’s in my safety level?”

“Yes.” Jorgien relayed the incantation without asking any questions.

“Briez, ifi hoo-auwen zai.” Jasper chanted twice, then shouted for Josephine to stop. It looked like she was out of juice anyway.

The beetle shrieked through Jasper’s ears, and he thought the whole campus might’ve heard it. For a moment, the beetle stopped thrashing and began shivering.

“MARIA, CODY, NOW!” Jasper shouted.

Maria stamped down on one of the small cores by her feet and chanted “Brazul.” Sacrificing a core on a single spell made that spell much stronger. Jasper prayed the small core was enough to make a difference here.

She slammed her mace hard into the bug’s frontal carapace, and cracks grew from the impact like a breaking window.

The second she rebounded off, Cody shoved his sword into one of the cracks. He incanted something Jasper couldn’t hear, and the sword thrusted in deeper, as if being propelled along a straight line.

The entity stopped seizing, and fell straight down onto its stomach. Miasma leaked in a dusky silver until the entire form had disintegrated, leaving a shiny, lead-colored core the size of a fist.

There would’ve been a sigh of relief, if anyone had the energy. Or time to pause between breathing.

Josephine fell to her knees. “Is it… really over?”

Maria jolted up, then ran a few paces down to… an open steam vent? Or sewer. Jasper wasn’t quite sure how those systems worked. She pulled the metal grate over the opening.

“Qué Cabrón!” Maria panted. “That thing came outta here!”

“What are all these little cores from?” Cody asked.

“BUGS!” Josephine shouted, sitting on the ground with her back leaned against the building. “So many bugs. I need food!”

Cody pulled a half bagel out of his jacket pocket and walked over to her. It was pretty barbaric, but the girls didn’t care. Maria ran over, and her and Josephine accepted it without a second thought. They went past their magic threshold, no doubt. They both sat against the wall like crazy cahoots.

Jasper also threw them his emergency granola bar. They ravenously split it.

“What were you two doing by the seismology building?” Jasper asked.

“Uhh.” Josephine answered through a mouthful of granola, then swallowed. “Lesbian stuff.”

“Es confidencial.” Maria added through a mouth full of pocket cream cheese.

“What the HELL happened here?” They all turned around, and Instructor Jorgien was staring at the leaden core on the ground.

“Our campus needs better pest control.” Josephine sarcastically shouted.

“Is everyone ok?” Jorgien asked, running over to them.

“More food.” Maria grumbled. Now everyone was in the shade of the side of the building.

“They said a bunch of bugs came from the steam vents.” Jasper said.

“And THAT?” Jorgien pointed to the larger core, their stern jawline and black hair as aged and intimidating as ever.

“Very large bug.” Cody said. Josephine and Maria had dead eyes as they stared into the distance, all out of food and will to go on. Once the adrenaline kicked off, they looked starved and near unconscious. “Uhh, I’m gonna run to a vending machine for them. You good, Jasper?”

“Fine, thanks.” Jasper said. Cody enchanted speed on himself and took off. Hopefully he’d use discretion if a rando was on the way.

Jorgien sighed, pulling out their phone. “I’m telling everyone to meet here. We need to check out the steam vent sewer system. I’d collect all the cores before your classmates arrive.”

Clearly, no one knew the difference or correlation between steam vents and sewers. “Good idea.” Jasper said. He ran around and found seventeen brown bead-sized cores, just like the one he’d already gotten from the grocery store. He brought the leaden one to Jorgien.

“Assuming you want to look at this?” Jasper asked.

“Yes.” Jorgien said. “Do whatever you want with the brown ones. Damn bugs are everywhere. They’re minor nuisance entities.”

Jasper looked at his professor strangely. “You mean…”

Jorgien waved, eyes on their phone. “Yes, yes. You don’t need clearance to use the small bug cores. That’s what this meeting is about.”

Cores held a condensed miasma in specific amounts measured by mions. It was energy that translated to ‘magic.’ If one were to merge a core with themself, the amount of magic their body could absorb from the environment increased. It’s what was called a threshold. Or, one could destroy a core to release all of its miasma in one powerful spell, as Maria just did.

Certain powerful spells required cores, but they wouldn’t learn about that for a while. Freshmen were desperate to get cores since their magic threshold was usually low or defined by what cores their parents gave them. Without a threshold, one’s magic relied on their  actual energy— calories from food, ATP mitosis and all that jam.

If these bugs were everywhere, that was a game changer.

“This changes things.” Jorgien said. “The big one. We haven’t had one of those yet. I’m surprised you all killed it.”