Chapter 63: Refracted Error

-Renji POV-

“Thank you, young man! Be sure to give my thanks to Lady Yā lì shān dà as well!” The elderly man waved, no longer as distressed now that his roof no longer had gashes in it. The work was simple, but rewarding. Renji may not be a technological genius, like their creator, but replacing a few panels wasn’t beyond them. The only true difficulty had been sourcing the replacement parts, which had involved a lot of waiting.

The man had been an understanding sort, pulling up a chair and offering food and drink while they waited. In the cold sunlight of Antarctica the two of them had discussed much. The elderly man had spoke briefly about the past month, the general improvements made and mistakes that had been learned from.

Perhaps most heartening was the increased competency that had been gained in tackling the trauma and grief that many citizens of Jinzhou still possessed. Taizong had made it his most pressing matter to solve.

Naturally, Sanzang had headed the effort and found great success in the utilisation of VR for therapeutic purposes. The time dilation that could be experienced in the virtual world aiding greatly in giving his patients the time they needed.

There was the worry of addiction to such technologies, but that was being closely monitored for.

All in all a successful month, if you didn’t count the birth of a new Endbringer.

Renji’s pondering came to an end as the figure of Alexander came into view. They stood atop the walls of the settlement, eyeing something in their hands with a burning focus.

With a leap Renji crossed the vast distance between them, coming to land directly at Alexander’s side. Alexander’s eyes briefly glanced their way, before turning back to what Renji could now identify as a comically large phone – one perfectly suited for Alexander’s stature.

“Su’s house has been fixed, nothing too complicated had been broken.”

His friend grunted in response, eyes still glued to the screen.

“It doesn’t make sense…”

Renji almost didn’t catch the softly spoken words, the voice of his friend low and quiet.

“What doesn’t?”

Their eyes remained where they were for a second longer, before they sighed.

“Taizong sent me the rest of the report. With all the information available I can say that an opening into Shardspace was indeed created within Jinzhou,” they explained with a pained expression.

Shardspace.

It was something Alexander had attempted to explain to them before, but the words had always been halting and confused – the one attempting to explain not understanding the subject themselves. Words had been thrown around that made little sense. How could a dimension be both virtual and real at the same time?

After obtaining one of their newer specialties the explanation had improved, though Alexander still seemed mystified at times.

“There’s parts of it I still don’t understand, Renji. It’s a pocket dimension, but not a typical sort. It’s an imposition of reality upon a space between dimensions, a place largely lacking in reality. The entities experimented with this for a time, but eventually decided it was a dead end in terms of development. The best use of it they came up with was as a sort of…meeting place.

Each shard would extrude a portion of themselves into that non-space. The establishment of laws could be bent more easily in this place, at least in certain ways. In particular distance was more of a suggestion, so using the place as a communication hub was the natural choice.”

According to his friend he had only obtained the barest glimpse into the creation of such a realm, and that was enough to make their head hurt.

“That’s concerning, but not out of the realm of possibility is it?” The question caused his friend to let out an angry huff, a giant blue hand offering him the enormous phone.

He fumbled with it slightly, it’s large frame making handling it awkward. He eventually managed to place it in a comfortable position and began to read.

His brow furrowed into confusion as he read the first line. This wasn’t something put together by Jinzhou’s head of state. If he didn’t misunderstand this was security briefing straight from the C.U.I.

Confused, he continued on.

Only to stop at a single word, hand twitching with an urge to draw his sword.

He turned his face to regard Alexander.

“Scion?”

“Scion,” the blue Endbringer agreed.

“But it’s not what he did that unnerves me,” his friend continues, “It’s what he didn’t do.” With that his friend reached down to point at a paragraph further down.

“Scion observed for a total of 6 hours, 3 minutes and 47 seconds before leaving.”

Then he pointed further down, near the end of the report, before once more reading it aloud.

“The anomaly shows no signs of change since first discovery,” they finish, ignoring the rest of the report for these specific lines.

“Scion should have closed it. I don’t understand why he didn’t, allowing humans to study an opening into Shardspace should be completely against his operating procedures.”

His friend bit their lip, eyes scanning the page another time – attempting to sus out any further information.

“So he’s done something unexpected,” Renji summarised, feeling ill at ease himself. Having an unpredictable enemy was never a good sign.

“Perhaps he had to leave to deal with something else? A bigger disaster? Perhaps that Titan?”

The blue giant shook their head. “That was the first thing I checked. However there’s a news report of Scion saving a kitten in Italy that places him there an hour after he disappeared. Even if something urgent called him away he should have headed back to seal the breach by now, but he hasn’t.”

Troubling indeed.

“Any good news to wash this down?” The question brought a tired smile to Alexander’s face.

“Yeah, plenty. I finished the forcefield, which should trap a set amount of heat within it, so nobody’s going to freeze to death. From my tour around the city, it seems like everyone has settled back down. Given how fast the response was, and how quickly they were able to relocate, distress was kept to a minimum,” they explained.

“I’m sure you showing up had nothing to do with that,” Renji smiled, sarcastically ribbing at his friend.

Alexander’s face flushed slightly, but the smile remained. “Well…maybe a little.”

Then the smile faded as their expression turned distinctly embarrassed.

“Also…I might have discovered why Jinzhou teleported right next to us.”

Renji blinked in surprise. Of all the mysteries surrounding the past day, that was not one he had expected to be solved so soon.

“Oh, what was it?” Renji asked curiously.

Alexander fidgeted, arms crossing over themselves in nervousness.

“So, as it turns out, those magical teleporters of mine can only teleport to places with a high level of ambient magic,” his friend elaborated, eyes shifted to the side.

“…Are you serious?” Renji asked, flabbergasted.

“…Yes.”

“How did you not know that?”

Alexander flailed their arms in the air at Renji’s incredulous question, clearly incredibly embarrassed.

“How was I supposed to know? It’s not like they ever failed to teleport whenever I used them!”

“Shouldn’t you have known though! Don’t you get info from your…” Renji attempted to pantomime the end of their question, the wriggling of fingers meant to signify ‘Shard’ only getting a slightly disgusted look from Alexander.

“Okay, first of all, never do that again! Second, those technologies come from worlds already brimming with magic! It certainly didn’t come with an instruction manual on how to use them in a world so lacking in magic!”

Renji paused. That-that made sense actually.

“So when you used the teleporters before…”

“Mostly used them in my drones, and those were never too far away from me – with a single exception.”

Renji searched his memories, attempting to figure out what his friend was alluding to. What was this ‘exception’.

His eyes widened in realisation.

“You mean in Jinzhou, when you used them to free the prisoners. Didn’t your drones teleport to them then?”

Alexander grimaced slightly, a single hand reaching to rub at the back of their neck.

“See, that’s the thing, no I didn’t. they flew there invisibly,” Alexander said, making Renji’s brow crease in confusion.

“Why?”

“You have seen the teleports haven’t you? Subtle is not the word I would use for them, so I made sure they would only teleport back.”

“To a place that had sufficient magic,” Renji finished, feeling a little light-headed.

Neither of them had realised it. There had never been a chance to do so. It was only Jinzhou’s suspiciously miraculous fortune of landing right next to them that had clued Alexander on to the fact that their teleporters weren’t all they seemed.

Renji massaged his brow lightly, wondering how many other intricacies they had missed. Then they stopped, their eyes widening in realisation.

“Wait, didn’t you set up some wards in Hyderabad before we left? Does that mean Jinzhou could have teleported into that place?” Renji asked in trepidation.

Alexander had only briefly gone over the last minute defences with Renji, but his super computer of a brain remembered it with crystal clarity.

Alexander had sympathetically tied his forest with another, a rather infamous one at that.

Aokigahara. Otherwise known as the ‘Suicide Forest’. A piece of land in Japan, near Mount Fuji, that was know to the world as one of the world’s most infamous suicide sites. If Renji remembered correctly, a cape that would later come to be known as Mijime had only added to the forest’s reputation.

A Master who could slowly increase the negative emotions of humans had taken up shop there and…

Well, the specifics didn’t matter but it was brutal.

With the wards using the legend of that forest invaders would slowly lose the will to live, eventually laying down and waiting for death. Renji had thought it overly cruel, but Alexander -still in a bad mood from what had happened that day- had insisted that it stay.

“No, there was never any chance of that.”

While Renji breathed out a sigh of relief at that, he was still very curious as to why that was. Which lead him to ask. “How? From everything I’ve gathered, it fits all of the prerequisites.”

Alexander shook their head, holding up a single finger. “No, it’s missing one requirement: the location mustn’t be one where death is above a certain likelihood,” Alexander said, explaining the final rule.

“Oh. I didn’t know that was a rule.”

Well it had to be. imagine if Jinzhou teleported, only to end up thousands of feet underwater. That wouldn’t be good, would it?”

The explanation brought some relief to Renji. Alexander, despite never being much of a forward thinker regarding themselves, had put some thought into where the people of Jinzhou might have ended up – if worst came to worst.

“Thank goodness,” Renji said, audibly expressing that relief.

Their friend’s head snapped to them. “Oi! What the hell’s that supposed to mean! What kind of image do you have of me?!” His friend yelled, pointing at Renji in mock rage.

Renji stifled a laugh and shook his head. “No no, I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just glad it didn’t happen.”

“Yes, well,” Alexander said, “As I’ve said before, there was nowhere else they could have gone. Hyderabad was too dangerous, the tunnels were too small and they couldn’t go back to Jinzhou. Although…”

His friend trailed off with a troubled look, eyeing the phone in their hand – the screen now showing a global map. Upon that map were three circles, bright red dots that grew fainter near their edges. Connected them were a series of lines, barely visible in comparison to the brightness that was Jinzhou, Hyderabad and Antarctica.

This, Renji realized, was a real time global map, showing the spread of magic.

“That dimension they ended up in, I have no idea what to make of it.” His friend admitted. Their eyes lazily wandering over the path of their travels. Jinzhou, smack dab in the midst of an imperialist regime. Hyderabad, the location that brought great shame to his creator. And then there was where they were now: Antarctica. A place still so full of potential, a place that had already surprised them with the reunion of old friends and allies.

Then, their eyes lit up. Renji could see it in their face, the way their mouth opened in realisation – as if a question had finally been answered. Renji could see panic, doubt and acceptance flash across his friend’s face, too quick for any human to spot. Then it crystallised into determination, and just a glimmer of hope.

“Figured something out?”

Alexander’s smile widened at the question, a smile laced with a dread excitement.

“Yeah, I think I’ve figured out why he didn’t close it.”

Renji’s back straightened in surprise. Truly? He knew why Scion had acted so oddly.

Alexander giggled slightly, a slight manic air bubbling to the surface. Their fingers flickered over the screen, zooming in to Jinzhou. The deep red that signified ambient magic levels was omnipresent, or it seemed like it until his creator zoomed further in.

There, near the centre of the circle was an area far paler than the surroundings, a pale pink where there should only be crimson.

“Thought so,” his friend muttered, soundly distinctly pleased –even smug- at the sight.

“Is that-“

Where the hole to Shardspace is? Yes, I’m pretty sure it is!” Alexander interrupted him, manners losing in the face of this discovery. The blue face pressed closer to the screen, as if attempting to divine any further information from sight alone.

Eventually they seemed satisfied, and leaned back.

“I’m fairly certain there’s magic inside Shardspace. Scion must have noticed.”

Renji choked a little. Magic that close to the Shards? Wasn’t that one of the worst case scenarios?

“So he didn’t close it because it allowed greater research into something that they would view as anomalous?”

“I’d say so,” they replied, not sounding at all concerned, if anything they appeared amused – eyes crinkling with how wide their smile was growing.

“Isn’t that bad?”

Alexander hummed in the back of their throat, a sound that indicated disagreement. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But it’s actually the first piece of good news we’ve gotten in this war against the Shards.” As they said that, something in Alexander’s posture…relaxed. The coiled posture, as if they were constantly prepared to run or fight, evaporated. They straightened up, and breathed out.

“They actually made a mistake,” they said, sounding at once mystified and deeply happy.

This only deepened his confusion, and upon seeing it Alexander continued. “Yes, the Shards studying magic isn’t good. However it’s a two way street. In opening themselves up they’ve left themselves vulnerable and allowed an unknown energy source within their beating heart.”

At that, Alexander flashed him a toothy grin.

“We have our chink in the armour!”

“That’s…” Renji’s words failed him as he understood the significance, felt elation bubble up at the realisation. “That’s incredible! So what’s the plan?”

“Well!” Alexander raised a finger towards the sky, spinning back towards the city and beginning to walk towards stairs that led back down the giant obsidian walls. “First, I’ll need to get something to Jinzhou. Something that’ll give me a good idea of what’s going on there. It’ll have to be stealthy too, don’t want the enemy to catch on.”

“More drones?”

“More drones! Can’t teleport them over, though. They’ll have to take the long way.”

“Because teleportation isn’t stealthy?”

“Give the man a gold star! He was listening!” They crowed, still looking extremely pleased with themselves.

They reached the stairs, each footfall of Alexander taking them down five or six steps at a time, forcing Renji to hurry down.

Those watching at the base of the stairs stopped and whispered to themselves, some pointing towards his friend’s face and the wide smile it bore. Alexander paid no heed, their social obliviousness coming in handy for once.

Renji was not as lucky, with more than one person coming over to shake his hand, ‘congratulating’ him.

Congratulating him for what, he wasn’t sure. He made sure to thank them regardless as they continued towards the centre of the city.

“So, if we’re making a drone, why are we going this way? Most of the matter available here is being used.”

“True, but there’s someone I want to see before I begin designing the drone. For something this important, I’ll need a second opinion.”

They turned and smiled, and Renji got an ominous feeling.

“We’re going to visit Cai Lun!”

Ah. That was what he was afraid of.

AN: Alexander flexing those brain muscles! So, yes, the reason for why Jinzhou showed up in Antarctica has to do with how the teleporters work, something which Alexander didn’t have the best grasp on – and also didn’t realise how flimsy his understanding of them was.

Also, that hole to Shardspace was not solely beneficial to the Shards. There’s a reason Scion’s usual course of action would have been shutting it down. The novel data may have made them too greedy, and  given Alexander an opportunity he isn’t planning to squander.

Thanks for reading, please leave a comment so my pet cat can be proud of me!