Chapter 41 (Patreon)

Shella Grark strode briskly into the dining hall and headed toward her usual group of students. The Academy’s second-year veterans had begun looking down their noses a little at the latest batch of first-years, and not without reason.

This place did not forgive carelessness. And when students ended up injured or maimed, the administration and instructors usually laughed and piled on with some truly venomous mockery.

The daughter of a smuggler well known in certain circles had been spectacularly lucky. In all her time at the Academy, she had never suffered so much as a bruise. Her fellow students in the combat department were nowhere near as fortunate. There was a reason she had two nicknames: Fluffy and Hit-Girl. Sometimes, mostly when the Director was involved, the two were combined.

One of her friends was Deadman, a student in the General Magic department. At this point, it was probably both a nickname and a calling.

Despite being human and from Coruscant, the guy had no particular prejudice against non-humans, so he had fit easily into their little group of oddballs. Well, that and the fact that the other humans had started giving him a wide berth. Apparently, the young man had left all his luck back home. He died about once every couple of months.

Rarely through any fault of his own.

The first time, Shella herself had been the one to kill him. The guilt gnawing at her afterward, along with a heavy dose of remorse, became the starting point of their surprisingly pleasant friendship and of the human’s eventual acceptance into the little group of assorted species.

And after that, things really got rolling.

He broke his neck falling down a staircase. Then some Mando’s blaster decided to fire all by itself and put a bolt through his throat. After that, Karray’s pink Killer Bantha mauled him to death because he smelled like a local predator. During a visit to the enclosure, he had somehow managed to step directly into one of the creature’s scent marks.

Karray had been extremely grateful to her involuntary “test subject” afterward. According to her design, the animal wasn’t supposed to attack humans.

Apparently, nobody had told the bantha.

And so on, and so forth. As for injuries and missing limbs, he had long since lost count. Director Dziha had even given him an amulet enchanted with anesthesia, for which Deadman was deeply grateful to the red-eyed sorcerer.

And now Shella had heard that her friend had somehow managed to die yet again.

Maybe some people found it funny, but Shella had seen what came after. Every time Deadman came back, he spent the next few days quiet and miserable.

“Deadman, how in the name of a Hutt’s slimy tongue did you manage to kick the bucket again?” the fluffy Devaronian exclaimed, throwing up her hands as she reached the lunch table where the rest of their little group had already gathered.

The Coruscant native only let out a heavy sigh and gave a mournful shrug. The cute little Devaronian took every one of his deaths harder than he did himself. In a strange way, it was almost nice.

The accusatory tone, though, was a little depressing. As if he were doing it on purpose!

The young man had only just come from the Director’s workshop. By then it was already lunchtime, and he had missed all his morning classes.

Now he’d have to catch up.

Again.

“He botched the water-condensation spell, and before that he forgot to put up protection against direct effects. Blew up like a soap bubble. Splattered half the classroom,” the young Sephi snorted, rolling her eyes. “This isn’t funny anymore, human. That was basic magic. We learned it practically at the very beginning! What were you even thinking about during class?”

The Muun sitting beside him continued eating with impeccable manners, merely nodding in agreement and giving the human, once again recently deceased, a disapproving look.

It wasn’t that Deadman’s habit of dying at random particularly bothered him.

What bothered him was that the last time the man had exploded, he’d decorated the Muun with most of his internal organs.

Lunch had suffered.

“I think it’s the nickname,” Tolvit, the Rendili native everyone called Shipwright, said thoughtfully, rubbing his cheek with one finger. “You know how it is with starships. Give one a name, and sooner or later it starts living up to it. I suggest we try not calling Deadman ‘Deadman’ for a while.”

“Oh, sure. Next you’ll tell me that after a whole year you’ll somehow switch gears and start calling him by his actual name. Even the instructors use the Director’s nicknames for everyone,” snorted the male Sephi whom Siith’khara’Dziha had, with characteristic generosity, also dubbed Ears. His sister was Ears too.

She only let out a heavy sigh. Their nicknames had driven her absolutely insane at first, but eventually she had gotten used to them and accepted her fate.

“And Deadman...” her brother went on. “It just fits him way too well, you know? At this point, we’re stuck in a vicious circle.”

“Um... actually, buddy, what’s your name again?” Tolvit asked awkwardly, scratching the back of his head as he looked at his perpetually dying friend.

They had introduced themselves once, but that had been a long time ago, and the nickname had stuck to the Coruscant native like glue.

“Kenny McCormick,” the guy answered calmly.

He was, in fact, the most even-tempered sentient in their entire year. Even the long-lived Sephi and the slightly stuffy Muun seemed overly emotional by comparison. Kenny himself explained it by saying that Death had touched him far too many times. Sooner or later, you started looking at life from a slightly different angle, and little things simply stopped getting under your skin or stirring much emotion.

“Don’t worry, Kenny.” The Devaronian gently stroked the back of his hand, mistaking the guy’s philosophical calm for distress. She had already taken her seat and started working on her lunch. “It’s just that the Academy is a little more dangerous than...”

A loud crack snapped from the next table. Something shrieked through the air. There was a heavy impact, and Deadman’s chest simply burst open.

Hot blood hit them first.

Then came the rest.

Wet scraps of flesh and shredded tissue slapped across the table, splattered the food, and stuck to clothes, fur, and faces. For one frozen second, nobody moved.

“...than everywhere else,” Shella Grark finished grimly, staring down at her ruined clothes and the fresh streaks of blood matting her fur.

“Oh my God, they killed Kenny!” Ears said mournfully, shaking her head as she glanced at the shocked group of first-years at the next table. Whatever had hit their friend had come from over there.

Actually, what the hell had that been?

“Bast’rds!” Penro growled, using two fingers to pull a shard of rib out of his arm.

At that exact moment, the once-again-dead Deadman pitched face-first into the bowl of soup he’d been eating before everything went to hell, sending a generous splash straight over the Devaronian sitting beside him.

“Well...” What followed was a complex string of obscenities in Fluffy’s native language. The serving of broth had been the final shot to what remained of her patience. “Hutt-damned first-years!!!”

And it probably would have ended in bloodshed, because Shella had already conjured a pulsar in her palm, a spell she was the best in her year at handling, and turned toward the terrified cluster of first-years.

A couple of them, overwhelmed by the sudden carnage, were busy losing their lunches. The rest looked distinctly pale and green around the gills.

Even the Rodian, whose skin was green to begin with, somehow looked a little sick.

So yes, a couple of deaths were probably about to happen, followed by a lecture from the Director and almost certainly a call from her father. Maybe even her mother.

Shella was prepared to accept the consequences.

The brand-new, obscenely expensive dress she had put on for the first time that morning looked absolutely perfect with her fur, and she had been planning to show it off in front of one very handsome Mando who happened to be on duty at the animal enclosures today.

And now it was ruined.

Her fur was a mess.

She reeked of blood...

And soup!!!

Grrrr!!!

The first-years were saved by the delighted squeal of a little girl behind the Devaronian.

“I told you we needed to check on Deadman!” The Director’s adopted daughter sounded absolutely thrilled, and that cheerful squeal cooled young Grark’s temper a little. “We got lucky! Thank Hecate and the clumsy hands of beginner artifact-makers! Did you see the amulet go flying? And how it splaaattered?! Blood everywhere!!!”

“Karray, you shouldn’t be happy about someone else’s...” began a delicate-looking green-skinned Jedi, trying to admonish the girl.

“Blah-blah-blah, la-la-la! I can’t heeeear yoooou!” The little girl clapped her hands over her ears and cheerfully hurried over to the body lying face-first in the soup.

With a flick of her aura, Karray tipped Deadman back against the chair, presenting the room with a hole in his chest roughly the size of a child’s head. You could see his spine through it without even having to squint.

“Ooooh... That hit hard! What did you guys shoot him with?”

“Bleeergh!” came the answer from the next table.

Deadman’s friends looked a little shaken too, though none of them showed any particularly strong signs of disgust or horror. After a year and a half at the Academy, they had seen plenty. And if they hadn’t personally witnessed horrific-looking injuries and even outright death being fixed by the Director or his ward, most of them would probably have fled the Academy long ago, non-refundable tuition be damned.

Against that backdrop, the two Sephi stood out rather favorably, calmly wiping themselves clean with napkins, as did the red-eyed Sev’rance Tann. She, in fact, had managed to dive under the table in time, and her perfectly clean, neat appearance was currently irritating Shella more than a little.

“Was that a force-field umbrella?” The speaker was answering Karray’s question, but his voice was practically overflowing with uncertainty.

“...Huh?” Karray froze for several seconds with one finger raised and an utterly blank expression on her face. It was such a simple artifact, practically one of the first things students learned to make on their own. Especially for the local weather. “But that’s... How... how did you even manage that?!”

The girl stared into the killer’s eyes with a hint of admiration, trying to imagine what you had to screw up badly enough for an artifact to launch itself across the room and then explode like a weak, unstable pulsar.

But the shock and utter confusion on the would-be artifact-maker’s face made her sigh sadly. Apparently, there would be no explanation.

And the little artifact that had gone berserk, probably not even an amulet but just a simple protective charm, was... well.

It had killed Deadman.

“Eh, whatever.” She waved it off and turned her attention back to the body, which slid off the chair and onto the floor under her gaze. “Come on, girls! I’ll show you how it’s done. You can assist and get some practice.”

An aura tendril wrapped around the corpse’s ankle, and the body went dragging along behind Karray as she headed for the cafeteria exit, leaving a bloody trail across the floor.

The two Jedi women exchanged a look, sighed, and followed the little girl.

“Karray, listen, you really can’t just drag him like that...” Knight Rig Nema tried once again to steer the Director’s daughter onto the right path, only to be cut off immediately.

“La-la-la! I can’t hear you!!!” The girl clapped her hands over her ears again and quickened her pace. “Hecate, why couldn’t they have sent Ani here to study? He’s definitely not this much of a bore,” she muttered under her breath.

Stass was at least fairly easy to get along with. Rig, on the other hand, was the very definition of a goody-two-shoes. All her “you can’t do that,” “that’s wrong,” and similar lectures had already driven the little witch up the wall.

The people watching the three chimerologists and today’s test subject leave fell into two distinct camps. Those who had already survived their first year and were heading into their second simply went back to eating as if nothing had happened. The more squeamish among them just swapped seats with someone less bothered by the view so they wouldn’t have to look at Deadman’s table.

The newer students, who had only just started practical training, were having a much harder time working up an appetite.

The table of the “killers” stood out in particular. One especially sensitive girl from Naboo was already on the verge of hysterics. No one blamed her for it; plenty of them had gone through something similar themselves.

But then she said something that made everyone’s attitude toward her words change rather abruptly.

“...! And that psycho little br—”

The girl from Naboo never got to finish. Shella Grark seemed to teleport across the room and clapped a hand over her mouth. Fortunately, she’d at least managed to scrub the blood... and soup... off her palms first.

“Girl, what are you doing?! Are you completely out of your mind?” Despite the indignant tone, the Devaronian was suddenly smiling very broadly and very openly, her whole demeanor changing in an instant. “That is the sweetest little girl, Karray. A chi-me-rol-o-gist and a sorceress. And she’s also the personal ward of Siith’khara’Dziha, our Director!”

The girl from Naboo tried to say something, but the Devaronian pressed one finger to her lips.

“Shh, shh. Let Shelly finish first, and then you can do whatever you want, okay? Now listen, girl. Shelly’s trying to help you here.” The fluffy Devaronian bared her teeth in a smile that was somehow both predatory and friendly. “Little Karray learned surveillance spells a while back. And she will find out what you say about her. Kids are curious! And they get offended easily too, trust your friend Shelly on that one. I should know. Every new little brat Mom produces after Dad’s latest visit to Devaron somehow ends up becoming my problem.”

The girl from Naboo tried to speak again and once again got cut off.

“Shhh. She’ll find out if you say something nasty about her, and Hecate forbid she takes offense. The kid’s a genius, and she’s making incredible progress in chimerology. And lately the Director’s been dumping most of the injured on her to deal with, savvy? Shelly sincerely does not want you waking up after ‘treatment’ and discovering that instead of one adorable little ass, you now have four.”

Watching the Naboo girl’s eyes widen as understanding dawned, along with the rest of her table, young Grark stretched her friendly smile even wider and gave the girl a hearty pat on the shoulder.

“No, of course she’ll fix the unfortunate little mistake. She’ll even apologize. If you’re lucky, the sweet girl might give you some cake too... But that’ll all be later, savvy? She might suddenly have something urgent to do, and your life won’t exactly be in danger, right? So you’ll spend three or four hours shaking four asses around. Maybe a couple of days, until she gets some free time.

“And don’t forget, friend, sweet little Karray might decide your buddies think badly of her too... Want me to keep going?”

The entire group shook their heads in unison. Satisfied, the Devaronian winked at the now even paler student from Naboo.

“There we go. Much better! Shelly’s glad she could help her new friend and all her buddies! And hey... if you ever need something rare, don’t be shy. Come to Shelly. We’re friends now, and the Grarks always give friends a nice discount.”

Under the deathly silence of the whole group, the girl headed back toward her own friends. They were getting ready to go change and had only been waiting for her. Sev’rance, oddly enough, was still with them too, just for the company.

“Shelly, in m’ments like this, y’ remind me of your father,” the Muun said with a smile.

“Spit that out! Hecate forbid my fur starts falling out!” young Grark widened her eyes in mock horror. “And look who’s talking! The second you hear credits clinking, your ears perk right up.”

“Pffft. Weren’t you the one who just offered to smuggle things for them? Even promised them a discount?” Ears chuckled quietly.

“Mollob, look at me!” the Devaronian said, rolling her eyes. “This dress cost almost six hundred credits! At the rate my wardrobe keeps getting destroyed, I’ll be walking around naked soon! Tolvit, not a word!”

The Rendili, who had already opened his mouth with a lecherous grin spreading across his face, deliberately clicked his teeth together and shut his “talker.” That earned a round of amused snorts from everyone around him. Shipwright had long since earned himself a reputation as both a joker and a womanizer, so it wasn’t hard to guess what he had been about to say.

“Anyway! Dad pays me a modest cut of every client deal, so my wardrobe has a very personal stake in the prosperity of the family business.”

“And, if it’s not a secret, how modest a p’rcentage are we talking?” Penro asked.

“Secret! But between us, for his own daughter, he could afford to make it a little less modest. Horned miser,” the girl grumbled. “By the way, Pen-Pen, if you’re interested, I happen to have a couple of kyber crystals...”

“Still a bit early f’r me to work with those,” the Muun sighed.

“I’d like to see them,” Tann suddenly spoke up. “Will you show me?”

“Of course, friend.” The girl, who had been looking a little deflated, immediately perked back up and broke into a wide smile. In her imagination, she was already counting the credits she could use to refresh her wardrobe. Maybe even buy herself a new pair of shoes. Jabiim’s shoemakers only made closed leather shoes, but they were beautiful and exceptionally well made.

“You don’t need to change, right? Then come on, let’s go to Shelly’s room! Shelly will show you her whole collection! They sparkle and shimmer like treasure from a fairy tale! Trust me, even if you don’t end up needing them, you can always sell them to some Jedi!”

“And there goes the sales pitch,” Ears said, rolling her eyes as the others laughed.

“I’m practicing. I can’t live off my mother forever. Besides, I’m not the heir, so I need to prepare for an independent life.” The Devaronian lifted her nose proudly. Under normal circumstances it would have looked rather cute. Covered in blood as she was now, however, the effect was mildly infernal. “So my plan is to have my own business, a normal husband who keeps his nose out of women’s business, and a couple of clever daughters.”

“Ah-ha-ha-ha!” the Sephi burst out laughing. “Make a move on the Director. He’d be perfect for you! He’s got more than enough of his own business to deal with, so he definitely wouldn’t stick his nose into yours... Uh... Shelly?”

The young Devaronian was frowning in deep concentration, clearly giving the idea serious thought.

“Wait...” she muttered. “He does keep calling me Fluffy... Maybe he likes me? I mean, why not? He’s a good-looking man, doesn’t waste his time on stupid things, doesn’t chase after girls. Unlike my father! And he’s a chimerologist. I doubt species compatibility would be much of a problem for him!”

“Whoa, whoa, friend!” Tolvit exclaimed. “You’re forgetting he doesn’t just call you Fluffy. It’s Fluffy Hit-Girl! Or sometimes Furry Death! And if all those rumors are true, there’s already been a whole pack of predators circling him for years!”

“You don’t circle around a good man,” young Grark said instructively, raising one finger. “You whack him over the head with a club and drag him back to the cave by the horns! Men never understand hints anyway.”

“Uh-huh,” the Sephi snorted. She knew perfectly well that her friend had been eyeing a young Mando for quite a while now, one already sporting a few scars and often assigned to duty at the animal enclosures.

Funny how Shelly was never seen anywhere near him with a club.