Truthseekers

"What do you mean 'we're here'? It's the same environment we've walked through for the last two hours?" Azriel met Turve's calm gaze, a highly bewildered look painting his face. They were standing on top of a small hill, grass and bushes spreading around them in a vibrant meadow. Some distance away bordered a sparse, oak forest whose wildly grown canopies shimmered in the radiating light. Flowers dressed the Earth's gown, a sea of colours hiding between streaks of grass and rising bushes. It was, as Azriel said, infinitely close to the exact same environment they had traveled over, nothing but the position of the sun evidently changed. 

"Do you think a group aiming for rebellion is hiding in plain sight?" Turve teased, that arrogant look back in his eyes. He rose an arm, clawing the air with his adjusted hand. But before he managed to perform any tricks, he got cut off by Azriel's quick response, "on that topic, don't you mean that you're aiming to overthrow the ruling powers?"

"I suppose we are," Turve dropped his arm, a baffling sensation causing his brows to twitch. — What did this little fart know about rebellion that he, the mastermind behind it all, didn't? 

"If so, you're staging a revolution, get your facts reread when we arrive at your 'den'." Azriel scoffed. This time, it was Azriel's turn to throw an arrogant glance towards the older man's direction. He felt good making that remark. Knowing the difference between rebellion and revolution was important. "I hope the name for your little organisation doesn't contain rebellion..." he laughed, smirking at the sight of Turve's dumbfoundedness. 

"You brat," he seethed, "this 'little' organisation of ours is called 'The Truthseekers', is that fine?" He asked, intending to draw upon more of the arrogance radiating from the little boy besides him, hoping to crush it by revealing the marvelous machinery he'd been creating for the last two decennium. 

"The Truthseekers?" Azriel repeated, laughing to his heart's content. "To me it sounded, when you described my father's heroic death, like you already had the truth, what is there to seek out?" He heaved, his breath going ragged from the continuous laughter. 

To his side, Turve had to place a number of mental shackles on himself in order to not strike out and slap the boasting kid currently rolling on the dry grass, laughing unnecessarily much to his own joke. "Get up," he said, stomping the ground with one foot. The earth rumbled, shaking Azriel from his laughter induced absent-mindedness. 

SItting straight up, the kid looked up at the fuming Turve, fear leaking into his innocent eyes, or at least he tried to portray them as innocent. He knew he was in the wrong. Slowly standing up, he couldn't resist making one last remark, "I'm sorry, it's just, after 15 years I thought you'd actually have a good name..." 

Having no chance whatsoever to react, a pillar of earth shot out from under one of his soles, completely throwing him off balance. Falling to the side, he struck the earth with a yelp, grass and flowers entering his mouth and nose. Snorting, he quickly pushed himself off of the ground, standing up again, weaving slightly from side to side and brushing his dirtied pants. 

Turve watched the whole ordeal with a smirk on his face. — Finally the little shit has shut up. I can't imagine the mental strain he will cause the others when learns to dodge these smaller attacks, Turve held to himself. He silently began plotting a plan, which he would introduce to his subordinates, containing lists of ways to shut this exuberant kid up, without killing, of course. 

Lifting his arm up for a second time, he took a grip at the air, pulling downwards. As if tearing a plastic wrapped present open, the air splintered under the pressure of Turve's might. Right before the eyes of the now very silent Azriel, the space split and quaked, collapsing around them to reveal the silhouette of a massive door, etched into the facade of an ominously dark wall. 

"What the-" he gasped, eyes as wide as saucers as he witnessed the greatest structural reveal of his lifetime. 

"Impressive, right?" Turve stood calmly, looking at his most prized possession, which he had just torn off. It was a magical fabric created by mashing together hundreds of magically induced, woven strings. The mashing had to be done by hand, Turve's hands, as the raw power and pressure he could exert was necessary for the process. 

When the fabric is completed, it completely shrouds any objects behind it in a sort of pocket dimension, allowing for passage through without interference. It also blocks any powerful master's Saint-sense, making the enshrouded object invisible. 

Stepping closer to the gigantic door, the hinges as big as Azriel's head, Turve grasped the giant doorknob and turned. A loud clicking noise spread over the meadow as the door, despite its size, smoothly glinted. 

Turning around, Turve waved proudly for Azriel to follow, stepping in through the opened door. The boy quickly regained his composure, doing as Turve and walking through the relatively small opening. When he had stepped through the door fully, it magically closed behind him, a deep thud reverberating to his back. 

On the outside, the fabric picked itself up from the ground, weaving together to seamlessly form a new veil of protection, making sure any undisclosed arrivals would pass by and not notice the machinery behind the second apocalypse working day and night in the human's backyard. 

On the inside, Azriel stood in a daze, marveling at the sight extending from beneath the cliff he was currently perched upon. "Are we inside a mountain?" He asked aimlessly, chin dropped to the floor. 

"Damn right we are," Turve laughed, he too marveling at his creation. Carved out from a mountain was a ginormous cave, easily stretching hundredths of meters in height and spanning at least a kilometer in width. Down at the bottom of the cavern was what could only be described as a bustling city: houses, lampposts and roads unfurling from the shadowed land.

Streaking across the metropolis was too many people to count, at least from the distance Turve and Azriel stood, a hundred meters up in the air. Just when Azriel was about to ask how they'd get down there, he noticed the thick cable lodged into the stone behind them. A sound as if metal was grinding against metal, eerily similar to the Warden's metal ball, approached the cliff and Azriel fell into another stupor witnessing the brutalistic cube slowing down before the duo. 

Turve bowed in irony, motioning for Azriel to enter the opened double doors of the cabin car. Hesitantly stepping onto the floor of the car, he turned around in time to see Turve closing the doors behind them both, taking a seat on the two benches attached to the walls of the transport-cube. 

A smile spread across Turve's face as he saw panic rushing over Azriel, in synch with the funicular railway detaching from the cliff-station and going out in open air. 

"Let us visit the City of Truth..." Turve spoke, his eyes shimmering with the reflections of the lamps way down below.