To be fair, I haven’t seen much in my short life. But even I could tell this was not how an average hallway looks. The hallway itself seemed normal enough, really. It had quite a bit of wear and tear, peeling paint, busted furniture, and broken doors among other things. The floor was tile and the walls were painted an off-white with a blue stripe running down the center. Faded logos for a company called ‘DocLabs’ were on display at several spots throughout what I could see. Most of the doors were shut, some even fused closed, but other than that the hallway itself was fine. What made it strange was what I could see in the doors that were open. We hadn’t even moved from where we had come out of the vents and I already had spotted two rooms that had been affected by the multiquantum generator. Both looked like they had once been dorm rooms, the beds and decorations were all they had in common. In one room all those things were made out of living plants. The bed was a large tangle of vines, the chairs had become hedges in the shape of chairs and desk and shelves were both made of living bark. Even the carpet was grass. It was oddly beautiful.

The other room was simply filled with water. It didn’t leak drip or try to come into the hallway, it stopped at the barrier of the room, filled to the brim and no further as if there was a wall blocking the way. The room was also much bigger than Shelly thought it should be. The size of a large swimming pool in length and width, not even accounting for the height, but that was only from inside. It just didn’t take up that much space from the outside. just a normal-sized room.

{spacial warping…} I blurted.

“What?”

{space is being distorted, it’s spacial warping.}

“How do you know that?” Shelly asked ‘tilting her head’

{I don’t know. I can feel it. can’t you?}

“No. why… can you?”

I sent her the concept of a shrug. And we dropped that topic of conversation. Shelly was way too interested in the remaining rooms to pursue questions anyway. Plus, we needed to find the wiring and get me connected to the rest of this floor.

We flew past at least fifty other rooms as Shelly led me back to our lab. Most were shut but she stopped at every open one to explore and catalog what the generator had distorted. I thought she was tired but apparently, science trumps a need for sleep (I wouldn’t know). Luckily nothing else was hostile so far. And to my dismay there weren’t any sentient beings, let alone any with any powers. Many of the rooms that had once held live-in employees now had some bizarre change, but many rooms had remained seemingly normal.

Fortunately, the 3D printing room was one of those, it had all the machinery we would need to print what we wanted as long as we had the templet. Unfortunately, on the other hand, it had no materials for actually printing, we would need molecular cartridges containing any metals, alloys, or other materials we wanted to use. The only cartridge we had at the moment was magenta ink, Ironically.

We were getting close to our room and the broken wiring should be nearby. It would hopefully be exposed but we had no way of knowing if it would be. After a lot of searching during which we found a room that resembled the void of outer space except for a single eye staring out of it watching every move our drones made(I named him Joe) we finally found the wire that had destroyed my view. Our hope paid off and it was out of a crack in the wall seeming damaged only from exposure. It was easy to repair with us working together, even with the limited mobility of our drone’s arms and their lack of thumbs. It was a hack shot job, but I could tell it worked when something that I can only describe to a human brain as the sound of snapping but visual popped several times in my field of view. Everything seemed to hum as I felt several cameras and microphones come online. It was tingly, or the closest thing I could experience to that sensation. The visual clicking stopped and I had full access to the feeds in a rush like sneezing a hundred eyes open all at once. I now had access and control of most of this floor, there were still a few bits that were disconnected but we could fix that in time.

[AREA UNDER A.I. CONTROL 58000 SQFT]

{Shelly, I only have access to this floor. Why?}

“there must be damaged connections on the level below us too. I was expecting so but I was hoping otherwise.” She sighed “we’ll just need to get down there to fix it, I guess”

Still, this was much better. Being stuck in one room was like having my arms and legs tied behind my back. I opened the door to our room as a test, it obeyed my command without issue. It was like raising an arm. A part of me. I tried opening and shutting every door I could.

{huh, that’s strange.} I said {some of these doors say they’re connected but I can’t open them.}

“those doors are magnetically locked” Shelly explained, “the system is designed so that even the resident A.I. can’t open them without the code. And before you ask. No, I don’t know it. I do wonder what’s behind them. And the ones that are welded shut what the hell is going on there? “

I didn’t have an answer. There were cameras inside of all of those rooms, but they were blocked to me.

{why are they locked?}

“I just told you I don’t know what’s behind them.”

{what exactly was Doc’s plan?}

“What?”

{What do you know about it, Shel?} I wasn’t being hostile I was just curious, I felt like I needed to know and the fact that she had never gone into details bothered me. With the addition of locked doors in the closet thing I had to a body, knowing was a necessity. Imagine if the front of your hand may hold the secrets to the universe but you can’t turn it over to see

“I don’t know much… she… kinda went about things on her own… I was really only told the bare minimum”

{What’s the bare minimum? Like, why make me?}

“I know bits of that but… if you don’t know there must be a reason, I just need you to trust me.”

{Okay…}

“I’ll try to make sure you know as things happen but, truthfully, I know very little from my perspective she told me some stuff, then a screen that said ‘entering cryostasis, then I met you…”

We sat in silence for a few minutes

“you know,” Shelly, noted, changing the subject “we can’t fix this whole place by ourselves, it was hard enough just getting you connected to this level, getting things actually fixed, like to full functionality, we need help. Like someone with arms. And with the generator leakage, we are going to need- “

{Metabeings? Right?}

“yes. Metabeings. Stupid, Don’t interru- “

{Do… I get to train them?}

“Well, I doubt it, but you can try.”

Oh yes, try I would. There had to be metabeings who could use my help. I’d figure out all of Doc’s mysteries later.

Anniabal Sc’olleith grinned at her metabeing status. Her liquid body literally bubbling with excitement. After two years of work, after the months and months of extra effort working for the hero’s league, she had finally gained enough STRENGTH to rank up to C rank. She tried to think of how she would distribute her power as she looked over her current stats.

[Name: Anniabal Sc’olleith

Species: Elemental (water)

Powers: Hydromancy-7770, Elemental form-3330

Abilities: Water shaping, rain needles, water absorption, pressure beam

Traits: source domain, true purity, mage shield, mana chilled

STRENGTH needed for next powerup: 100000

Current STR: 100300

Unassigned STR: 90300 (Please rank up)

Power ranking: D-10(minor combatant)

Power up now? Yes/No]

Anniabal pressed the yes button and a new prompt appeared in her vision.

[Ranking up… please distribute STR.

STRENGTH to distribute: 90,000

Hydromancy- 7770

Elemental form- 3330]

How should she spend her STRENGTH? Most of her power was in hydromancy, maybe she should put everything into elemental form. but on the other hand, her body was also made of water. Increasing her hydromancy usually still had some direct effect on her physiology, but that wasn’t guaranteed, or always going to be a good thing. Side effects for medicine can be worse than poison.

She decided to first get both powers up to an even 10,000, still leaving her with a whopping 81100 STR. She could split that evenly between them but that was the lazy way out. Her mother had always told her to think and give every action a purpose, who was she to argue with the queen of the elemental realm.

Coming to a decision she decided to put 20,550 into her hydromancy with 60,550 going into her elemental form. that tended to be the most defensive of her powers and she was kind of a glass cannon at the moment, with lots of attack power and only minor defense. She would have to deal with any changes to her body but with elemental form they were guaranteed to be positive, at least on the surface. Imputing her decisions, she was greeted by a final screen.

[ new ability unlocked for hydromancy:

Wave shield (

“Let their attacks wash over you”

create a shield of highly condensed water in front of yourself to block an attack.

Shield is progressively harder to summon each consecutive time in an hour.

current summon limit within an hour: 5]

[Congratulation the STRENGTH level of your power ‘Elemental form’ has reached a milestone! Please choose one new ability or trait associated with this power:

Arctic waters: Trait (gain access to the ice branch of hydromancy. your body will also be cooled to the point of near freezing, with some parts of you remaining solid at all times. This will slow your movements but will increase physical attack power and strength by a large margin. (note: this will also upgrade all other skills and traits to include ice as necessary)

Elemental core: Trait (your soul will be consolidated in a crystalline core in your chest. Upon your body’s destruction, if this core survives, it can be placed in a body of water for you to reform from. You may also leave your core in your source domain giving the water your traits and allowing you a set respawn point. If this core is destroyed, you will die

Human form: ability (gain the ability to take on a human form. while this form is limiting, removing all water-based traits but allowing access to all abilities, it also rids the user of all weaknesses granted by their liquid state.]

She almost picked human form without thinking but stopped herself. It was the worst choice and granted almost nothing power-wise but… her mind drifted to Clair. This would let her touch her again. She would settle for a hug or a quick kiss but… No, it was an awful ability. Plus, human organs and stuff probably felt gross. Maybe it would show back up in a later upgrade. Pushing her thoughts back on track Anniabal considered the other options. Arctic waters was ‘cool’ but it would add more to her attack, which was not what she was looking for, also as a magic user and long-range combatant she didn’t have any real use for extra physical strength. And, despite how incredible it would be to gain ice magic, it wouldn’t make up for the disadvantage of slowing her down.

Elemental core was truly the best, it was supremely defensive making her very hard to kill and it would be a source of magical water if she could find a large enough source domain. It would give the league a good reason to give her a pond or a lake. Her source domain trait gave her extra magical power the larger the body of water she claimed. At the moment she only had a large bathtub in the room next to her, but this could change that. Keeping her alive and helping her get more powerful. Win-win. She made her selection.

[ranking up…]

Anniabal gasped and nearly passed out as her entire body tingled with the rush of ranking up. She felt her powers become bloated with STRENGTH before growing to accommodate it, her mind buzzing with the power shifting itself to magic for her use and rushing through every part of her being. It was intoxicating, euphoric, and most likely addictive. The real reason so many metabeings were obsessed with getting stronger. The sensation went on for minutes that both felt like hours and seconds. The feeling lasting both too long and not long enough. When it ended, before she even had time to collapse into a puddle, a new feeling began this one starting in her chest seeming to radiate inward, as if pulling something to the area where a humans heart would be. She squirmed a bit at the feeling. It was a bit ticklish but nowhere as intense as the rank up had been. After a couple seconds the feeling was starting to get annoying and she was now actively wriggling against it. The radius thankfully began to close, and the awful sensation soon ended. Anniabal now holding a glowing blue gem in the center of her chest, floating just visible above her top.

Before she could celebrate her new rank or pass out, there was a knock at the door.

Rising to the door she opened it, on the other side was Clair, smirking as always in that way that suggested she knew just a little more about any situation than you did. Her slightly green-tinted skin and pointy hat making her profession as a witch somewhat obvious.

“Hey Hun, the team meeting starts in ten minutes, we need to get moving so I came to make sure you’re ready”

Anniabal had to stop herself from just hugging her fiancée purely as an expression of excitement for her own personal accomplishment.

She didn’t for both the woman’s safety and the decorum she had been raised with.

Clair had been a normal witch only six months ago, but an unthought out upgrade on her most recent rank up had placed her I the category ‘Ozian witch’, while it came with a large boost in power, including the ability to summon flying monkeys at will, it also came with the severe weakness of being burned by contact with water. Water like the elemental that was her girlfriend, what an idiot… Anniabal missed spending time with her. Still, she maintained the poise the princess of elementals should have

“Is there something different about you?” the witch asked, “did you eat a rock?”

“what…? Oh. No, I just ranked up! This is an upgrade” Anniabal said going on to explain her new trait.

“Oh? That’s a good one! By the way, I read a few studies on witches from Oz and their reaction to water, if I can figure out why it happens, we can counter it, with alchemy or someth- Oh god! I completely forgot. we need to go now; I’ll explain after the meeting” Clair began gesturing for Anniabal to leave the room, knowing it was easiest to let her have her way the elemental complied, and within a few minutes they were in the meeting room.

“I’m glad everyone made it” started Captain Stormburst, the leader of their team.

He had once been a normal human, a soldier in the army, until the day when, during training, he fell into a generator producing nuclear-electric energy. Instead of killing him it granted him incredible powers and access to the metabeing status, using his new gifts he had quickly, only within two years, rose to rank A5, that was the time it had taken Anniabal to rise one rank, let alone to the second-highest ranking. The man was a powerhouse (literally in some aspects). And kind of an asshole.

“I’m genuinely surprised that some of you decided to show, good job.”

“Sorry,” whispered Ziporound, their team’s mutant speedster “I was at my grandma’s funeral last week…” he explained

“of course, I guess that SOMEHOW excuses you from missing work. Now on to actual business. There have been sightings of gangs made up of metabeing rebels around the area. There is also some worry that the evil doctor m-“

Anniabal began tuning out the rest of what was said and began thinking about how best to ask for access to a larger body of water for her source. She would need to wait for the perfect time or else Stormburst would say no off-hand, after thirty minutes of endless droning about villain base locations and the abilities of various metabeings that may be dangerous she finally saw her chance. During one of the pauses in Captain Stormburst’s rattling about an evil wizard living somewhere in the nearest mountain range she began speaking.

“on a related topic, I ranked up this morning and I now think I have a way to provide our entire branch of the league with enchanted water”

That was good, state it in a way that benefited him. She saw Clair give her a quick thumbs-up.

“Hnm? Okay. How so?”

“Well, the trait I selected allows me to place this core…” she gestured at the crystal inside her “into a body of water that I have selected as my source domain. once it is placed in the water, the entire source will gain magical properties, I will also personally get a boost to my power as a meta and a safe place to reform from in the event of my death during battle.

“and what kind of magic would this water have?” Doomheart the half-demon warrior amazon queried, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing holy, I assure you. It’s based on my own traits so let’s see…” Anniabal looked inward to her status “true purity should keep the water completely free of contamination and clear any poisons from anyone who drinks it. It may also help boost healing depending on the injury, mage shield should let it give a bit of extra defense and, mana chilled should protect from heat to a limited degree, it will always stay cool and never evaporate even in a desert…”

It wasn’t as powerful as she had wanted it to sound but maybe-

“anything else?” Stormburst sighed

“no sir… I just think a lake or pond would be really beneficial to both my development and the team’s”

“well, I usually would take a request like that to the branch head, but since I don’t think anything will come of it, I won’t bother” He yawned.

Anniabal wanted to strangle the man but that would just end with her being blasted with electricity or blown up.

“but I-“she tried to continue

“With that conversation done, anyone have anything else to report?”

The meeting went on for another hour Anniabal pretty much ignoring the whole thing, it was unimportant, and her plan had failed. Clair looked at her apologetically but there was nothing the witch could do. As soon as she was allowed to leave Anniabal made her way to the bathroom next to her bed-chamber, she would put her core in there for now. Maybe she would find something better later.