A sudden explosion of sparks and static electricity cut through the silent room, waking the two sleeping people up. One barely reacted, opening one eye first, and squinting against the blaring light. The other flew to her feet, brandishing her hammer and shield, ready for combat.

“Relax,” Toora said, having sensed the familiar energies of the incoming teleportation.

Lisa stood down, relaxing ever so slightly but still maintaining full focus. Her mind was one with her hammer, the tool an extension of her body ready to act as her weapon should she need it to.

Edmund emerged from the flurry of cerulean lightning, which then disappeared leaving only the occasional discharge to hit the walls and consoles of the room. He looked around and took note of the still laying down Toora and the alerted Lisa. An eyebrow went up on his face, before the stoic façade crumbled into a smile. Toora got up to her feet and smiled back, pointing at Lisa.

“Always the quick one.”

“She got spooked by the sudden noise.” He said, looking back at where he appeared. Then he acknowledged her. “You should have done the same.”

She shrugged. “Why? I sensed it was you.”

“No, you sensed reality-bending energy. It’s different.”

“How is it different?” her tone was playful. “You’re the only Hume user after all.”

He was quite serious. “The only one that you know of.”

“There’s others?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. By all means there shouldn’t be. But…”

“I see.” She said, then inhaled. “Speaking of… you can teleport, then?”

He scratched the back of his head. “It’s expensive. And complicated.”

“Uncomplicate it.”

He frowned. “To uncomplicate the, uh, complicated: I can teleport to the Pylon because it’s the center of the net, and I can teleport back because I follow the residual tachyon traces. Something like that? Yeah, well and anywhere else would be so preposterously expensive that teleporting any meaningful distance is out of the question.”

Toora nodded, satisfied. “Now what?” she asked.

Edmund was about to reply, but Lisa cut him off. “Now we get the fuck out of this hole.” She said.

The other two exchanged looks. “She angry?” Edmund asked.

Toora said nothing.

“Why? Did something happen?”

“Something? Happen? Nothing fucking happened in here! I am bored!” Lisa yelled, and the voice bounced back from far away in a dark corridor.

“Ah. Right.”

Toora, seeing the conversation was going nowhere, chimed in. “What’s the worst that can happen, right? It’s all plains and fields for miles anyway.”

Edmund had a complicated expression plastered on his face, but let go. In hindsight, he blamed the overly easy success of the earlier realm expedition as the main cause for his carelessness. For now, however, he could see no problems in leaving, considering that Lisa and Toora had indeed been trapped here for quite some time while he was dealing with his own business at the tower. He owed them some speed in getting out of here.

They left through a long series of tunnels and rooms. While they had arrived here through teleportation, now they were leaving the old fashioned way. There were no dangers left in the complex, just like there were no valuables left. Everything had been assimilated by the nanites, which were now firmly under Edmund’s control, inside his body, where they were slowly replacing all living tissues with more of themselves. All that was left to do here was the long walk.

“You do know the way, right?”

Edmund nodded.

“Because it would suck to have to backtrack.” Lisa said in a low voice.

Edmund didn’t know if he should smile, exhale just loud enough to be heard, or do nothing. He chose the latter, but was pleased by the fact that Lisa was at least trying to be more open in his presence, although in a quite childish way. Toora was saying nothing, and he definitely was not going to say anything himself.

“Say, did you have any breakthroughs?” The mage asked, as if noticing that she was the subject of his thoughts.

“Yeah, I found out that most of the tower floors are now vast realms full of people and monsters in search of my tech, which somehow got scattered in there and/or was hidden there by Axiom acting like it had free will. Disturbing to say the least.”

She nodded. “It is…”

“No matter now. Here.”

The door to the outside was once again a thick concrete slab reinforced with steel. It had a gigantic handle fit for a giant, and looked so heavy it would be impossible to move it. Indeed it was supposed to be, as there must have been some sort of mechanism that opened it automatically back when the complex was still in use. Now, however, the only way to open it was via brute strength. Edmund flexed his arms, then turned around with a smirk and looked at Lisa.

“Want to give it a try?”

She scoffed. “Looks easy enough.” She said, and pulled.

The door opened ever so slowly, with the usual accelerating motion of a very heavy object kept in place by well lubricated parts. Once it got moving, there was no stopping it, and despite Lisa’s best efforts the door slammed on the wall on the back and the handle embedded itself in the concrete. She looked at the spiderweb of cracks that spread from the site of impact, and wiped some sweat from her brow, shrugging.

The light from the sun was low, coming at an angle that almost blinded them with the orange glow of a late afternoon. The temperature was mild and pleasant, and the smell of grass felt fresh after a long time trapped underground. The trio stepped outside and stretched, taking in the freedom and the air for a moment.

A whiff of an unexpected smell reached his nostrils. Edmund thought about it for a while, and was almost sure he was smelling wood burning. He looked around, his arms still up from the former stretch now frozen in time, aware that the rest of his team was doing the same, but couldn’t see anything. He mentally checked how much reality bending energy he had, and felt quite confident he could react should anything happen.

“Are you Edmund’s team?”

Just as he thought that, a voice from behind him startled him to the point that he teleported in place, so that he could turn around faster. As soon as his brain managed to process the now changed point of view, he saw that there was a man standing near the wide open door. He was lit by the sun, but the light disappeared when it touched his dark garbs that fluttered in the wind.

“Maybe,” Edmund said. “What do you want with them?”

The man laughed. He raised his hand, and Edmund watched attentively his very action. I feel no magic use… better be ready. Allocating 100H, waiting. However, no magic was used. Instead Edmund noticed that the man was pointing to other three people, previously unseen, who were now effectively surrounding them. Lisa was down in a low stance, hammer of Causality – this is how she decided to name her new weapon – at the ready. Toora was… staring at them, a complicated look on her face. Edmund took a moment to process this information. The nanites were still in the earliest stages of replacing his body and brain with augmented tissues, but even at this stage he could take in all this information from environment and process it ten times faster than a regular human, provided he only accelerated his thoughts for a short time. A time that was coming to an end. He needed to buy more time.

“We are Shiningstars,” the man in the black garbs said, “a high C-rank team. We have orders by the guild to escort you safely and as quickly as possible to Torchback. Someone wants to see you.”

Edmund stared. Smells like shit to me. Praetor?

He felt a touch on his hand. It was Toora, and she was leaning towards him, lips close to his ear.

“Don’t.” she said firmly. “It’s too dangerous. They could probably kill us all just with their aura manipulation abilities, let alone their actual magic.”

The people from the other team, Shiningstars, were immobile. Even as he stared at them, they didn’t twitch, not even an involuntary movement. Their faces were stone. Three men, a woman. One man was muscular, tall, dark skin and no hair. Then there was the garb guy, unarmed save for the concealed knife and throwing daggers, which could probably be dodged unless there was magic involved. Then an unassuming guy with glasses, who looked like a malnourished elf with even weirder ears. Then the woman, another mage like Toora.

He thought about what Toora said. Aura manipulation.

“What? Is rank all that different?”

The team was C-rank, a whole rank higher than they were.

“People lie in a spectrum of course. But these are a full guild-recognized rank ahead of us. Yeah, they are that much stronger.”

They were still unmoving, as if letting Toora do the intimidation for them. Edmund found himself staring at the unassuming elf more than he should, and he felt that the guy was sweating, trembling. Somehow, however, it didn’t make Edmund feel any more confident, if anything because the rest of them were the complete opposite.

“How would they kill us with aura?”

“Aura is a natural evolution of our magical perception, right? It can manipulate matter, energy and magic, other than just sensing them. Imagine what they could do with it.”

“Ah. Scrambled brain served right on the spot.”

“Yup.”

“Fuck.”

“And the only way to resist it is to have an aura of our own. Which usually means you are ready for C-rank. You do have a very weak aura, don’t you?”

“Hume aura, if it even exists.”

“It certainly looks like it does. But Lisa and I are still a ways before we have one. And even then, high C-rankers would crush us in an instant. Remember, the distance in skill and power only increases if we consider the actual magic.”

The garb guy was suddenly right in front of Edmund.

“You finished?” he asked.

Edmund nodded slowly.

“Good. I’m glad you could be reasoned with. Now, if you were so kind as to follow us.”

Edmund and team were led to a small covered wagon, where they were sat with three members of Shiningstars. The garb guy was sitting in the front, managing the horses. They were not actual horses, but served the same function and Edmund was too distracted to even joke about them. What captured his attention was, once again—

“What are you staring at?” the big guy boomed.

Edmund tore his eyes away from the elf. “Woah, big guy. What a lovely voice.”

He felt the man flex his muscles, and stared at an arm bigger than his entire torso. He swallowed his nervousness.

“I’m sorry.”

The man got up and grabbed the elf by the clothes. He shook him back and forth, closely examining him with his eyes from up close, like a shortsighted goldsmith would do with his magnifying lens. The elf trembled and sweated bullets, but said nothing and let the other man manhandle him.

“What does this bug have that piques your interest?” he shook the elf more, and the glasses fell to the tip of his nose. “Uh? What?”

Edmund stared, widening his eyes and pursing his lips. “Nothing? I mean, he looks pretty mid to me. No interest is being… piqued.”

“Then why stare at him, eh?”

He was sweating, but bullshitting his way out of stuff was something Edmund knew how to do. He hoped, at least.

“Because… I mean, why even have someone like him on the team? You all seem so collected and all, then there’s him.”

His eye twitched, and he held his breath but then the giant man boomed with laughter.

“Yeah, right? He’s our healer, but,” he got closer, “between us, we only keep him because he’s fun to tease.” The man punched the elf, who groaned and held his chest in pain. “See?”

Edmund nodded. “Yeah. Very fun.”