Cye woke up like he did most days. Wrapped up in blankets and unwilling to actually get out of bed. The only thing that actually made him get up was the knowledge that he had to feed his pet mantises. He threw in a couple grasshoppers and bit the head off of one himself. He decided that was enough for breakfast today.

“Have you cleaned the bathroom yet?” his mother asked, parading into his room.

“Not yet, but-”

“Well get on it then.”

“I will,” he signed, already tired after being awake for ten minutes.

“You’d better,” she growled. “By the way, you’ve got somewhere to be today.”

“I do?”

“Yeah,” his mom snapped. “You’re signed up for a two-week camp thing.”

“When did I do that…?” he mumbled in confusion.

“You didn’t. I did. You could use time out of the house.”

“Mom, I have work-”

“Get some time off,” she fussed. “Figure it out, because you’re already signed up.”

“I-”

“Don’t argue,” she hissed. Cye bowed his head.

“Ok mum…”

“Now be a good daughter and clean the bathroom for once.” Cye felt that remark cut deep in himself. “Then get your ass out of the house and over to the park.”

“Yes, mum…”

*   *   *   *   *

That afternoon, Cye stood in a single file line with about two dozen other carvation in the outside space. His mother sent him to this new thing for carvations to toughen up or something. He wasn’t really sure what it was, but he was being forced to go to it. Suddenly, they all turned their attention to a woman who teleported in front of them. She was a formally dressed cicada variant wearing a stern expression. She gave them all icy-cold glances.

“Are you my group this time?” she shouted, making everyone jump. They all nodded. “Well then, let’s have a look.”

She silently walked down the line and stared holes into their heads, presumably evaluating them. Though, she could’ve also just as easily been trying to scare them. When she got to Cye, she looked at his antenna and extra arms and narrowed her eyes.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Cye, sir- ma’am- uh-”

“Captain.”

“Cye, Captain!”

“Good to have you here, Cye,” she smirked. “Could use some more of us bugs here.”

With that, she moved to the poor cow variant next to him, who looked like she was going to make a run for it after what she saw with Cye. If the woman was trying to scare Cye, mission success. When she had gone down the entire lineup, she got back in front of them all.

“My name is Captain Sona,” she barked. “You will address me as Captain! You are not here to make friends! You are not here to have a good time! You are here because you are the weakest of the weak, and I am going to make you into men!”

One snail variant carvation raised her hand. The Captain gestured to her.

“I’m not a man,” she said.

“When I’m done with you, you will be,” Captain Sona growled. “Any more questions?”

About eight people raised their hands. She nodded and looked around, getting a spine-chilling smile.

“Good. Everyone with a question, step forward.”

Everyone put their hands down, and nobody stepped forward. Sona narrowed her eyes.

“I said, everyone with a question, step forward.” she said, this time with more force behind her words. 

The carvations who raised their hands gulped and stepped forward. Captain Sona growled and sprang forward, taking a turtle variant by the wrist and pulling him forward. She was giving him a death stare. Then she flew away to distance herself.

“Everyone with a question, come ask it face-to-face!” she beckoned.

All the carvations hesitated, but one soul braver than the rest started walking forward. He was only a few meters from Sona before he stepped on the ground and triggered something. A rope made of light materialized under his feet and closed around his ankle, and left him hanging suspended in the air.

“I said, everyone with a question, come ask it face-to-face,” Captain Sona repeated. “Come on, don’t be shy.”

In a few minutes, all the other carvations were caught in nets, pits, snares, and other traps that Captain had set beforehand probably. When they were all captured, she grabbed them all and dragged them back to the line.

“Now remember,” she said harshly. “Life will never just let you just take what you want! You have to take it with force! You have to take it with vim and vigor! You have to not be a wuss and be tough, and not have the physical constitution of an undercooked loaf of bread! I am going to harden you into diamonds! Is that clear?!”

“Yes!” they all shouted. 

“Yes who?!”

“Yes, Captain!”

*   *   *   *   *

“Who would like to volunteer first?” Captain Sona asked. Nobody moved or made a noise. “You there, bug boy,” she called, pointing to a kind of bug carvation. “Come here.”

Cye jumped at first, thinking she was talking about him, but was relieved when someone else stepped forward. He was apparently a water strider bug variant, and looked terrified to get singled out. 

“Better him than me,” thought Cye

“What is your name?”

“It’s Len, Captain.”

“Alright Len, let’s start,” Captain said, pointing to a target a few meters away. “I want you to hit that target with a small fire spell.” The carvation looked at her, concerned.

“Captain, I can’t do fire magic. I do water-”

“Everyone here can do fire magic,” she interrupted. “You just have to…” her voice trailed off in thought.

“Believe in myself?” the boy asked.

“I don’t care what you believe in,” she snorted. “You physically can do it, so do it. You know how to do fire magic?”

“Yeah, it was one of the basic spells in magic class, but-”

“Then do it,” she said sternly.

Len gulped and took channeled magic through his hands and tried to mold a kind of ball of magic about the size of a beach ball that ignited into colors of reddish orange as he threw it, but it didn’t make it to the target before sizzling out. He gulped and looked at the Captain.

“You can’t just throw out whatever,” she grumbled. “Do you do that with water spells?”

“No, I feel in control then,” he explained. “It’s easy to direct and just kinda… flows.”

“Well, fire doesn’t flow, it bursts,” she said. 

Captain Sona channeled magic through her hands and made a finger gun, and at the tip of her finger a small white-hot formed. It fired out in a flash and went straight through the target’s bullseye. She looked to Len 

“Now you do it.”

“Captain, I can’t-”

Sona leaned down and started whispering in the boy’s ear. Most probably couldn’t hear it, but Cye was really good at listening. She was trying to give him a private talk.

“Come on, you can do it,” she whispered, guiding his hands. “It’s not passive like water, it’s aggressive. Get it out like it’ll kill you if you don’t.”

Lan got a ball of fire in his hands again, but it was almost larger than the last one.

“Now condense it,” she commanded, guiding his hands again to shrink it into a blue flame. “That’s it… now let it fly.”

Lan shot out the flame, and it collided with the target and knocked it over. The boy smiled and jumped in excitement. Captain Sona flashed a smile for a second before replacing it with another hard stare as she turned to the group again.

“Who’s next?!” she called commandingly.

*   *   *   *   *

Captain Sona continued to drill, train, and humiliate all of them throughout the span of two weeks at her little camp. It was the worst, but it could’ve been better. She quickly learned that Cye couldn’t really do much magic at all because of his magic deficiency from not eating much. She made him eat a lot to try and get it up, but there was only so much she could do.

He did at least learn some fun things though. Cye had to skip out on a lot of the magic stuff, but she taught them about fighting and doing physical activities too. It turns out he was pretty good with weapons and wrestling because of his extra mantis arms. Go figure. Today was the last day, and she gathered all the carvations to this big stone disk thing.

“Does anyone here know what this is?” she asked. One person spoke up.

“It’s the arena for the final duel in our Olympics.”

“Correct! Now, I’ve spent the last two weeks molding you wet pieces of clay into bricks! It’s time for your final exam. You’re all going to fight me!”

Everyone fell silent, and everyone looked at each other to confirm they all had the same thoughts. They were screwed. Just then, someone teleported onto the stone disk with the Captain. He had hawk wings and a scorpion tail.

“Don’t look like it’s a death sentence,” she barked. “We’ll give you a demonstration.”

“Sona, I don’t want to get thrown by my tail again,” whispered the man.

“Suck it up,” she whispered back.

The two turned to each other and started fighting. Though it was hardly a fight really. The man had these crazy talons for fingers and tried slashing Captain Sona, but she grabbed his arm and pushed him, then grabbed his tail and threw him out of the disk arena.

“You see what he did?” she asked. They nodded. “Good. Don’t do that.”

“Can I go?” he asked, rubbing the base of his tail.

“Yeah, go ahead you big baby.”

“See you tonight,” he said, sticking out his middle finger at her as he teleported away.

“So, let’s see what you got,” she said to them with a smirk.

Everyone fought her one-by-one, and nobody won. Not even close. She called them up individually, without a visible pattern really. Cye was sweating and panicking, not wanting to really get thrown around like that man. He was the last one she called up, and the carvation thought he was going to pass out just walking onto the disk.

“Ready?” she asked, getting into a fighting stance.

“Yeah,” Cye nodded.

As soon as she started running at him, he started flying. He was definitely faster in the air than on the ground, but so was she. Cye was far, far lighter though, so he could still fly circles around her, like he could with most. One thing that Captain had that he didn’t was magic though, and the boy came to find out she specialized in trap magic, so he was careful.

His antennae twitched and he could sense something in the sky. Cye swerved his body as he heard a snapping sound and saw a net made of light swoop out of nowhere. His antennae kept twitching and going crazy, and he looked closer in the air to see small, thin strings of magic all throughout the air around the arena. She had rigged the whole damn sky.

He was so distracted actually, that he didn’t notice Captain Sona until she grabbed his ankle and threw him towards the ground. It hurt like hell, but he knew for a fact it was her going easy on him. Sona was flying down to follow up, but when you have four arms, you can scramble out of the way quickly. 

“No more running,” barked Captain. “Fight!”

Captain Sona ran at him, and he braced himself and stopped her with his arms, then with his lower arms he grabbed her around the waist. Cye lifted her up, surprising them both. He didn’t think he could do that really. He felt really sure of himself, and tried to throw Sona. As soon as he tried to do that though, he realized he was a little too sure of himself. The last thing Cye saw was when the Captain’s body crushed his in his arms.

*   *   *   *   *

“You all lasted over 40 seconds!” Captain Sona shouted with a smirk. “That’s 20 seconds more than I expected! Great job everyone!”

They all felt happy that it was over. None of them won, but Captain Sona recognized them as fighters and praised the whole group. They could tell she apparently felt really proud of them all.

“Everyone, run to Loft’s for dinner. I’ll meet you all there. Except for you,” she said, pointing right at Cye. Everyone ran off to get some food, leaving him and the Captain alone.

“Is something wrong, Captain?” the bug boy asked nervously.

“Are you ready to go back home?” she asked.

“O-of course I am.”

“You’ve got those nightmares when you’re home though, right?”

“Yeah… but I’ve had them for so long that I just deal with it.”

“What about your parents? I know your mother signed you up for this whole thing.”

Cye’s face fell when she mentioned his mother, and she could see it. He couldn’t tell her anything. His mom would kill him.

“They’ll be fine…”

“Well, don’t hesitate to come back to me and my group for more training,” she said. “The door’s always open.”

She pulled Cye into a hug, incredibly surprising him. One of her hands rested on the back of his head, and the other on his back. The hug was soft and heartfelt, like one from a mother. A mother who might’ve cared. When she released the boy, he could’ve sworn he saw the hand that was resting on his head glowing.

“Come on,” Captain said. “We’ve got a meal to eat.”

*   *   *   *   *

“How was camp, honey?” Cye’s mother asked.

“It was fine,” he mumbled.

“Did you eat dinner?”

“Yeah, Captain took us to eat afterwards…” He looked outside and saw it was just pitch black. “I’m going to bed.”

“Not going to clean the bathroom first?” she asked harshly. “You’ve been gone for two weeks, after all.”

“Can I do it tomorrow?”

His mother gave a snarl and rolled her eyes.

“Fine. Don’t expect to sleep in.”

“Alright…”

Cye went to bed and sandwiched his head between two pillows. He had a bit of a headache and didn’t want to deal with anything else. Luckily for him, Cye was just so tired that he just fell asleep in only a few minutes.

After she saw Cye fall asleep, his mother went to work like she often did at night. She used her specialized mind magic to dive into her son’s mind and terrorize him with nightmares. Although to her, she was diving into her daughter’s mind to make her realize she wasn’t a man. He had been away at camp for a couple weeks, and she hadn’t been able to do anything, but she was relieved to have him back.

She dove into his mind and entered his mindframe, a gateway to get to his dreams. When she arrived though, something wasn’t normal. Like walking into a room with objects slightly shifted around. She found the gateway to his dream though, and tried to go through, but something was wrong with it. She tried to push through, but something was blocking her. Cye’s mindframe started to warp around his mother, and a voice started echoing around.

“Your son told me about his nightmares at home.” She recognized it as the lady who led the camp she sent Cye to. “I know someone who also does mind magic, and I made an inference.”

“Agh!” Cye’s mother shouted in frustration, trying to leave. She found herself unable to exit though, no matter how hard she tried. She cast a spell, and out of nowhere a chain shot out and wrapped around her ankle.

“I specialize in traps. And you walked into a mind trap. He doesn’t know I set it, but you’re not getting in anymore.”

“Let me out!”

“Have fun being imprisoned in your own mind until someone wakes you,” said the voice, fading away as she began to stomp and use magic. Every spell she cast only made the trap bind and restrict her more.