Chapter 64: Maze

-Chubster POV-

Ben’s breaths came ragged as he looked around. Against all odds, they had made it out without being detected.

And yet…

He glanced around, wincing at the frozen landscape that now surrounded them.

“Anything?”

The question directed at Remote caused the Parahuman to look up and shake their head.

“Unfortunately not. There appears to be interference,” Remote said, their words clipped from aggravation. They had been repeatedly attempting to get in contact with the PRT, to no avail.

Something was stopping them from getting through, and they were running out of time. The lashing winds were slowly, but surely, sapping away their body heat. Pyroclast had been using their power to generate heat by grinding rocks together – the surfaces now red hot.

Yet it was a band aid over a gaping wound, it wouldn’t suffice for long.

“I don’t suppose any of you know how to build structures in arctic conditions? Maybe a little igloo?” The question he posed was light, with a little extra flare added at the end to try to buoy their spirits.

Judging from the downcast expressions he had failed.

“I don’t think any of us know anything about that. Not exactly something they teach in the Protectorate,” Orwell said, pacing slightly.

“Pyroclast, could you use your powers to build us a shelter?” Despite asking, Ben felt he already knew the answer.

It was to his complete lack of surprise that the man shook his head.

“My power lacks fine control and without that…”

He hesitates slightly.

“…Any structure I build may well risk collapse, and while I could use my power to hold it up…I will need to sleep eventually.”

Ben grimaced at the thought of being crushed underneath rubble again. “We’ll leave that as a last option then.”

“OI!”

The yell made them turn, seeing scope trudging towards them – the thick snow slowing their efforts down to a crawl. “There’s a cave near here, about a hundred meters west of here. We could bunker down there for a time!”

That, Ben decided, was the best news he’d heard all day.

“Uhhh…should we worry about polar bears being in those caves?” Wayfarer piped up.

That…was a good question, actually.

“It depends,” Orwell said calmly. “If this is the Noth Pole, then yes. If it’s the South Pole, then no. Best to keep our guards up anyway.”

At that cheery warning, their group set off. Through the glare of reflected sunlight on the white snow they marched west. The occasional gust of wind kicked up frost and ice, causing most of them to cover their eyes with their hands and arms.

Atlas was far less guarded, taking the front and leaving a passage in the thick snow to follow them from. Ben would have taken that role on himself, however his Brute power relied on slow movements – and everyone wanted to get out of the cold, including him, asap.

The cave, when they started, was barely visible, but that small dot of black grew as they continued forwards – eventually revealing itself as a cavernous mouth that plunged into inky blackness.

There was something about it that put his nerves on edge. It was too smooth, the mouth of the cave too perfect in its circular shape – as if it had been bored out instead of forming naturally.

“Wonder who built this,” Atlas said, running a hand down the smooth wall of the cave – his hand coming away to inspect the small granules which now lay in his palm. He rolled them between his fingers briefly, before casting them away.

“I’d look it up, but unfortunately I can’t right now,” Remote grunted, still fiddling with a communicator.

Ben looked into the cave, the inside opaque to his searching eyes. He turned to Scope.

“Anything?”

Scope peered past him, their cyclopean eye piece rendering their expression unclear but after a few seconds they nodded in satisfaction.

“Seems like a normal cave, no predators present. In fact it’s rather bare.”

For whatever reason that seemed wrong to him, yet he couldn’t put his finger on it – he merely felt a sense of unease sneak up on him. He pushed it aside. Better a spooky cave than an unstable lump of rock or going back to Jinzhou.

With a shrug, Atlas stepped in first. He was soon joined by the rest of them, some appearing more cautious than others.

He was one of the more cautious members of the group, he had to be. He was the one put in charge, and after Shuffle’s passing he didn’t want to lose anyone else. Orwell and Scope still hadn’t told him what had happened to her.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

He cave was long and winding, leading further into darkness, yet curiously he had less trouble seeing than he would have thought. After a while the ambient light seemed to stabilise, no longer decreasing. It wasn’t right.

He took another step.

Then, Scope and Orwell suddenly seized up.

Scope dropped like a rock, convulsing on the ground – eyes rolling in their skull. Orwell remained standing, but the jerking of their shoulders and panicked eyes was all the more horrifying.

“Scope?! Scope!” Wayfarer attempted to rush to her side, but Ben quickly stopped him – an unmovable hand to his shoulder.

“No! Don’t! Give them some space!” Ben looked at Scope’s shaking form, and then the surrounding area. Thankfully Scope had fell near the centre of the tunnel, and the smooth walls ensured nothing jagged could tear into them while they were in this state.

Instead his eyes turned to Orwell.

“Orwell?” Ben kept his voice low, “Can you hear me?”

The shaking head of Orwell turned to him, their skin pallid and sweating. Ben looked into the man’s bulging eyes, and knew what the man was feeling.

Fear. Pure unadulterated fear.

“My power isn’t working.”

Ben’s heart sank. Again?!

No, wait, if their powers weren’t working how was he holding back Wayfarer so easily? He was a big man, but holding back someone as well trained as Wayfarer should have taken more than one arm if he didn’t have his powers.

His other hand reached for the wall of the cave, and with a gentle push his hand sunk deep into the stone.

He pulled it out just as easily.

His power was still working.

So, what was going on?!

“Ben,” Orwell said in a tone he had never heard the man use. Using his true name, no less, and not his codename. It was unlike the usually professional Orwell that Ben knew, so unlike the man that it made him briefly lock up – his body going ramrod straight.

“before my power cut out there was- It-“ Orwell seemed to choke on the words, pale lips unable to from the words.

By this point everyone had turned away from Scope, all eyes on Orwell as the man trembled like a leaf in the wind. Eyes dilated and adrenaline beginning to course through their veins. The next words the man finally scrounged up sent shivers racing down the spine of every person who heard them.

“There was something watching us.”

-Alexander POV-

The drone had been sent. It would take roughly ten hours to reach the breach. It could have reached the area in less than that, but for stealth to be maintained it would have to cruise at a slower speed than its maximum.

“And these batteries! They’re much more energy dense than the ones we have access to!”

I smiled as Cai Lun rambled on, soaking up the knowledge I had given him like a sponge. The speed at which he made logical inferences and used existing knowledge to trailblaze new paradigms was always amazing to see. After Renji, Cai Lun was perhaps the creation I was most proud of.

“It uses a certain crystalline lattice,” I vaguely state, instead sending him the schematics and underlying sciences directly into his mind.

“Oh? OH! I see, the material and structure is certainly interesting. I wonder if this material could be used in-“

His mutterings descend into unintelligible murmurs interspersed with the occasional bark of laughter. It was part of the man’s charm, he had an unending love for what he did. His behaviour often reminded me of a child in a candy store, constantly marvelling at what was around him.

Renji apparently didn’t agree, constantly maintaining a five meter distance from the man at all times. It wasn’t a caution that I understood, so what if he had asked me to create a black hole the last time we had interacted in China? It’s not like I did it.

Mostly because I didn’t know I could. I hadn’t experimented with concentrating so much matter in one place. I knew better now.

Though, that reminds me: I should show Cai Lun my black hole trick before I return to building up my inner sanctum. I’m sure he’d be interested!

“So, remember that last conversation we had?”

Renji’s face morphs into a look of horror, while Cai Lun looks up at me in curiosity – broken out of his ramblings, for now.

“Ah Yes, the observations of a black hole! Truly a shame I could not witness a singularity with my own eyes, I had so many tests I wanted to run,” Cai Lun laments.

“Well, I’ve got good news!”

Cai Lun’s face brightens.

“You’ve discovered faster than light travel?”

“Ye-Wait no, that’s not what I was talking about.”

“Oh,” he seems disappointed, then glances up in suspicion “But have you though?”

“Uhh…”

“I knew it! Oh, you’ll have to share the data! Just think of all the readings we could take of the Solar System with this!” He grabs one of my hands, shaking it up and down in excitement, either missing or ignoring the exasperated look Renji sends his way.

I, for my part, am more than a little bemused, but still willing to go with the flow.

“A good idea, but I think you’ll have to deal with the space pigeon first,” I teased him with a smile. That smile became considerably more strained when he only nodded enthusiastically at what was supposed to be a joke.

“This is true! I’ve already begun preparations on the missiles, and with you here it should go much faster!”

I leaned in, with some concern. “What sort of missiles?”

“Antimatter!” Cai Lun beamed.

…Dear God, he really was my creation.

Renji, stop looking at me like that, I didn’t mean to encourage him!

“Maybe don’t do that. I’ve already got a plan in the works for that. An explosion of that sort of magnitude,” I stopped to run some calculation and shuddered, “would not have light consequences.”

The man pouted like a six year old being told he couldn’t have an ice cream.

“FFFFFINE!” he whined. “But you better make it up to me! You said you expanded space in your basement? How? Was it a pocket dimension, is that what you meant?”

“No, though I do know how to make those too – added a few of them into the tunnels!”

“I’m also interested in those,” he said to me, picking up a pen and paper.

Why he needed those when he had an eidetic memory, I didn’t know.

“Maybe stick to the spatial expansion, I put some pretty scary stuff in the tunnels.”

The man didn’t look to convinced, but shrugged and proceeded to grill me for information – redoubling upon learning I now knew the technology that Shards typically used.

I had to periodically lead him away from certain subjects, no I wasn’t going to show you Strange Matter Cai Lun – stop asking!

And that’s how I wiled away a few hours, in deep discussion with a scientist of voracious appetite and questionable tastes. We spoke until shadows began to creep up the streets, cast from the tall buildings that made up the city – sunset casting them in reds and yellows.

I bid the Paragon farewell, for now, and left with Renji in tow. Everything in Jinzhou was, for the moment, secure. No one was at risk of sudden death, Taizong was no longer doing anything crazy, multiple barriers had been set up (both magical and technological in nature) and the people’s worries had mostly been eased.

“Well, time to get back to building up the main chamber,” I smile, glad to be getting back to my work. I had never enjoyed leaving something unfinished, the empty space at the heart of my new base scratching away in the back of my mind ever since Jinzhou appeared.

“And my upgrade?”

“And your upgrade,” I agreed with Renji. I had come up with a few ideas on that, though they were admittedly a little barebones at the moment. Swapping out materials and technology for superior alternatives was a no brainer, but the little details were still in the works.

Then there was the magic side of things. With my new understanding I could see that Renji’s core was…rather primitive. I had dragged down an ideal with rotten string and lazily placed it into something that might resemble craftmanship if you tilted your head and squinted.

Renji, unlike the Paragons, didn’t have a defining ability. He couldn’t distort space, bend probability, become immortal or anything like that. The only thing his magic did was power him, making him slightly more physically capable than he should have been.

I could fix that. With AetherPunk I could more accurately inspect the relationship between the ideal and the body, the essence of the Samurai and the doll I had crafted for it to inhabit.

Many weeks ago I had crafted Renji using a mix of Sakura wood and metal drawn from iron sand. That had actually been clever on my part. The links this gave my creation to Japan had likely been the only reason it had worked with how crude my methods were.

Japan’s own belief of Kami residing in all things had likely played a part in that too.

This time I would remake the body entirely. The materials would have to be made first, and left to soak in enough ambient magic for me to begin enchanting them. It would be a more holistic approach, crafting each body part separately in such a way that they would complement each other.

Runes and stories would be engraved upon each part of the body, like before. But now I understood the link between SilkPunk’s effectiveness and the amount of effort that was placed into what you were working on.

A mass produced sword would gain far less from this type of magic than a custom sword that you crafted yourself. It was a magic that rewarded art and patience.

This time, I would use that to the fullest.

“Once we get down there we’ll begin the first steps towards your new body.”

AN: Yo! Honestly this chapter was supposed to solely be about the protectorate’s cave spelunking adventure, but the words weren’t quite wording so that’ll be the next update. We still got to see the first part, and it’s definitely not looking good!

Alexander and Renji meet with Cai Lun, the drone is sent off and they discover that Alexander’s penchant for massive displays of terrifying power may have been picked up by the scientist of all people. Now Renji and Alexander are going back to finish their work on the main sanctum and Renji’s body.

Thanks for reading, please leave a comment!