Power up !

"Rise and shine snowflake."

Astrid moved a little and opened her eyes at Matt's words.

Yawning a little, she stood up and packed her stuff along with Matt.

"What next?" she asked quietly

"I have been looking around for the past four hours and we have three choices, either we go through the only open octagon at the bottom but we'll have to sneak past all the machines, we enter that ventilation shaft at the top but it will be almost impossible to get there or we go back to search for another way. " Matt explained all their options in more detail.

" Well the vent is too high and it will be dangerous to get there, going back doesn't sound like a good idea either and sneaking past the guards is impossible… Hmm, wait, is there a way… for you to do what you did at the arena again? "

" What do you mean? My explosives? " Matt inquired

" No, no I meant you disappearing and all that. " Astrid said

" Oh… yeah… right."

'Can I do that Aiden?'

[Cuttlefish invisibility membrane DNA accessible, you must find a way to use it yourself.]

'So I can do it, I just need to find out how.'

[If it can help you host, knowing the organism's biological composition and functions can help in imagining the transformation process.]

'Sure~ What is a cuttlefish again?'

[From a children's book you have scanned, they are considered the kings of stealth. Most humans think that the chameleon has the best camouflaging skills but that isn't true at all. The cuttlefish is a marine mollusk similar to a squid, it possesses Inc sacs to escape from predators but rarely uses it thanks to its amazing stealth. It can model other marine animals or surfaces by changing its shape, color and texture. It is also very intelligent and can use "tools".

If you wish for more precise biological details, please access the institute's records.]

'That sounds cool but it doesn't really help me…'

"..."

Matt started to walk in circles thinking to himself, 'If I remember correctly I turned invisible after getting angry at Astrid when she kicked me across the arena… Is it some kind of berserk state similar to Astrid's ? From what I know that could be the case… And yet I have no idea how to enter that state…'

Matt turned around and sat on a crate with rusty iron pipes poking out on one side.

'Think Matt, think. You can usually outfight a born warrior like Astrid or outshoot a sharpshooter like Wiflys by outsmarting them. So, how do I get past a bunch of machines that don't get tired and can't be killed without turning invisible… I could distract them like I did with the ones outside but two strange events will make them connect the dots. At least they are searching for us outside and not in here… '

While silently sitting atop his box and thinking, Matt made the crates' lid slide and fall off. To prevent it from making noise and alerting the machines, Matt quickly caught it by reflex, cutting himself on the rusted surface that was hidden under the lid.

"Fucking scrap." he felt the blood on his hand trickle down as he put the lid back on the crate as quietly as he could.

A droplet fell on the floor next to it, at first nothing happened, Matt was quickly patched up by Astrid and discussed moves they could pull off to get through and whether she had an idea of how to let him access his mutated form.

It wasn't until a red light coming from behind them that they turned around expecting to see an angry machine but what they saw was something very weird.

The little pearls of blood on the floor that Matt lost started to gather together like some sort of sentient blood worms and formed a kraken with intertwined tentacles in the shape of runes.

It's color slowly changed from blood red to purple until it reached a beautiful cyan blue color. (IMG Here)

'Nope, nonono. I swear I'm not a witch please don't burn me !

I have seen fucking killer robots, super animal mutants, I even saw god! But cthulhu Lovecraft bullshit…I just have to say I'm outta here man, no way. Why-'

[Destination, out of the cauldron of famine, corresponding checkpoint, one.]

[Fast travel activating]

A weird heat haze appeared around Matt who was both starting to get nauseous and stupid after realising that he forgot the ability he obtained before coming to this world.

Astrid, seeing the effects, thought Matt figured out a way to turn invisible and jumped at him in joy.

Not knowing what would happen if Astrid was by him while he warped, Matt tried to push her away alas he didn't do so in time and both of them disappeared from the devil's den.

Somewhere, in a completely dark room, two silhouettes appeared out of thin air.

No blinding lights, no mystical portal, no special effects.

Even though she had not suffered the initial nausea Astrid fell to the ground and vomited her guts out.

Although better, Matt scrambled to stay standing as his legs felt like jelly.

While he would have liked to take a rest he made the logical choice of checking their surroundings.

They were in unknown territory after all and he didn't want to be found by the corrupted machines.

Taking out a modified blaze canister from one of his pant pockets he lit the top resulting in a primitive flare.

Now being able to see around him he saw a square room reflecting his flares bright red light back at him.

Traces of blood and other fluids dirtied parts of the floor and walls.

A strange lectern with a hand imprint stood in the middle giving Matt an idea of where they were. He still had nightmares of this place after all, like most Valhalans did.

The last detail he found was another kraken symbol drawn before the lectern with a weak glow that slowly died out.

[Successfully fast traveled to the Hermes training facility from Famin's cauldron.]

'Wait what? I have obviously tried everything to activate this ability including stuff with my blood so why didn't it work?'

{Let me explain, fast travel is, as the name suggests, a traveling ability for long distances. To activate it you had to drop blood on a location further than 10 miles away from another blood drop to create a checkpoint system.}

This sweet feminine voice in a slight British accent completely took me off guard, turning to the side to check if Astrid had heard it. I was met with her petrified figure laying on the floor.

{Don't worry about her, I stopped time for a while.}

'You what? Wait, first of all, who are you?'

{Oh my. Oh rude of me. I am Sophia, an angel envoy from your admin. Who, by the way, is quite vexed that you forgot about his gift.}

'I… had a lot going on.'

{Oh he knows. He congratulates you on getting a girlfriend by the way.}

'Uhm… cool I guess?'

{He asked me to help in your power and ability management because quite frankly, you haven't even thought of using most of them and when you did it was purely by accident.}

'You aren' t wrong… But why does it feel like I am being scolded?'

{Because you are, on Mr. Freemans behalf. Anyways, here is a quick upgrade to your system and some explanations. I have a poker night to attend.}

The voice simply stopped talking as if she had just hung up from a call.

'She didn't even say goodbye… So what changed… Aiden?'

[Yes sir?]

'Has anything new popped up?'

[In fact yes, a new file appeared in my database and a strange new function has been installed into my systems.]

'Do you have a shop or a gatcha?'

[Do you take me for a casino sir? Please refrain from belittling me.]

'Hmm so nothing else. Aiden does seem more polite than before… More British…'

Looking to the side Matt saw that Astrid had mostly recovered from the secondary effects.

'Before she completely recovers, show me everything that was added.'

_______________________________

Documents :

-Animal record for children

-Ancient Chinese history book

-Renaissance in italy

-The era of paleo christianism in Europe

-Fast travel guide <NEW>

[To create a fast travel checkpoint, drop blood on surfaces more than 10 miles appart from each other. This will activate the power.

Any blood drop within a shorter distance will not turn into a glyph/checkpoint. To use the fast travel, stand near a glyph and think of your destination. Any accidents that may occur cannot be blamed on the reincarnation department.]

-History of the holy Roman empire

-The great emu war

…

Super special god fast travel of coolism :

Checkpoints (2 / 3) :

-Hermes facility

-Famine's cauldron

Map (2 / 3) : Dog shit quality map

Upgrades (0 /?) :

[You can change ability and location names to your liking. You can also delete a checkpoint. Maps surrounding established checkpoints are now available.

Upgrades can be obtained by achieving something that pleases the members of the reincarnation department. Cool stuff is highly appreciated. ]

______________________________

'Please change this shitty name to Fast travel, Famines cauldron into Cauldron of famine and leave the rest as is.'

Matt closed his eyes and opened them up again before asking "Do you feel better now?"

"Yeah, where are we?" Astrid responded as she lifted her head from the ground

"I… I think you won't like to hear it."

"Why?"

"Well… remember the torture chamber?"

'Aanndd, she blanked out, great. I can't blame her, the whole ordeal was a nightmare that even caused her to become half bipolar half schizophrenic… '

'Should I snap my fingers in front of her face to wake her from her stupor ? That's kind of rude…'

Gently taking her in his embrace, Matt carefully patted her head and whispered in her ear in a soft voice.

"Come on now, everythings fine… I'll always protect you."

"Sorry."

"... Is everything alright now?"

"Am I not good enough for you?"

"Wait, wha-"

"Right before you tried to push me away, you are always the one protecting me even though all I know is to fight, protecting you should be my duty… You're the smartest and kindest. You even get along well with the others while I-I…" Her moist eyes leaked tears that started to flow on her cheeks and her pale face took on a sad, distressed expression.

'Alright this is going too far.'

Taking her chin with one hand and the back of her head with the other, Matt held her at his mercy.

"Who cares about that ? You. Are. The. Greatest. Woman. I. Have. Ever. Met. Understood? "

He knew she was going to try and refute him so he had to silence her, with a kiss.

At first she reacted anxiously, then she calmed down before accepting what was happening and passionately reciprocating the kiss.

Stopping their intimate moment Matt decided to confess as well.

"I'm the one that should apologize dear. I somehow made us exit a place we had so much trouble entering, act like a complete Douche and have you, the greatest warrior of our tribe, compare herself to the cowardly trickster that I am. I'm also responsible for playing with your emotions, ruining your social life… I even had you clean up after me when I collapsed the scrap hill."

*Sniff**Sniff* In a state between sadness and laughter Astrid had some trouble bringing her sentence together, "Why the fuck are we apologizing for. Haha. Even before we were pretty stressed out… It feels good to take a breather."

"Yeah it does… We really haven't gotten any free time since the tournament."

"Where I kicked your ass by the way."

"That you did, haha."

A pleasant silence ensued before Matt took both of Astrid's hands in his.

"Let's go back there and bitch slap that bastard in the face. He took my dear princess hostage after all."

"Except the princess is the one going to put his head on a pike on our front porch."

"Oh, I like the sound of that."

'Fast travel : Cauldron of famine.'

Both disappeared from the room, moments before a Valhallan guard opened the steel entrance and took a look inside with his wooden torch.

"I swear I heard voices having an emotional rehab just now... Nah, it must have been my imagination."

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