Chapter 56: 5-6 Scattered

Scattered 5.6

2001, June 7: Washington, DC, United States

Thursday morning found me playing with the keyboard mom bought. Piano was the gateway drug, the marijuana of instruments, and in true Asian fashion, mom treated it like the alphabet: If you couldn't play it, you weren't a musician.

Her attitude reminded me a bit of my past life. Then, I had attended an introductory course on piano at a local hagwon. I remembered running out crying because I was legally blind and couldn't read sheet music without making little t-rex claws. I was six at the time; that represented my entire foray into music before my arrival here.

Music seemed to be one of the few fields in which I was utterly mundane. Which wasn't to say I was hopeless, only that I wasn't inspired to play the piano in the same way I was inspired to brew potions or enchant wonders.

The closest comparison was my Shojin kenpo training. The knowledge of how to play music was there, but it was distant, far removed from the creation process. If I chose to dive in, it truly would be an exploration into the world of composing, starting with the bare basics.

I played through Mozart's Minuet in F, a generic intermediate piece mom insisted would make my fingers more dexterous. She had me on this and another piece for two weeks whenever she had to leave me alone to go to work.

By now, I could play it mostly from memory and wore a pair of headphones tuned in to the news. It was more about finger dexterity than any enjoyment of the song anyway.

"Now on to sports with Mike," the newscaster said. "The first match of the NBA finals saw a surprise guest: Eidolon. He was seen figuratively letting down his cowl and enjoying the game from ringside seats alongside Exalt, a rising star in the Houston Protectorate. If ringside tickets to the NBA finals with Eidolon is what you get for your heroics, I'm not surprised Exalt's putting in the hours. Now, let's talk scores…"

I snorted. I'd spoken with David on several occasions now and I could conclusively say he wasn't the type to reward his subordinates. If anything, he was archetypal of the tech-genius CEO who started his own multi-billion dollar company. He did found the Protectorate after all.

He gave of himself so completely to the mask that he sometimes had trouble understanding why others might not do the same. For him, the extra hours, minimal sleep, and constant training were all things that were a natural part of the job description.

Seven months of therapy weren't enough to radically change a man.

Oh, sure, he laughed, made some cheesy heroic one-liners and dad jokes on camera, but I doubted a mere seven months were enough to fix his underlying issues. I could at least say that he was making an effort. He, Eugene, Keith, and Rebecca did occasionally go out for a beer and in February, he indulged a bit and acted as a guest commentator at the Superbowl.

I was cautiously hopeful but knew better than to expect too much of him. Something told me the Simurgh wasn't going to be driven away by some R&R.

X

I brushed the sweat from my brow and looked over my runework. Mysterious letters from a civilization long lost shone in glowing blue, contrasting eerily with the white faces of the Worldstones and their relay pylons.

I could no longer find a justification to put off the creation of the Worldstone network. These flat, tablet-like pieces of relic stone were some of the most important things I could make, and also my least favorite.

In short, I loathed repetition. I wasn't a fan of making an infinite number of healing potions either, but at least they could be made in batches and were relatively quick. Now that I cracked mass production, I found myself avoiding what I saw as menial labor like the plague. Perhaps it came with the World Rune of Inspiration. After all, if there was such a thing as an antithesis of Inspiration, it'd surely be the soul-crushing monotony of a factory line worker.

Or maybe, I was just a lazy son of a bitch and I was indulging in it now that I could dump my work onto machines.

Which led back to the Worldstones and their pylons. No matter what I tried, they couldn't be industrialized, not fully.

The relic stones could be alchemically converted. They could be shaped using pre-programed lasers to topographically match wherever they were headed. But the runes? The runes were my domain.

It was almost as though there was something mystical, something deeply profound and personal about the runic languages of Runeterra. I experimented with Feljordian runes, Ionian scripts, both human and vastayan, the hieroglyphs of Shurima, and a dozen other writing styles. The results were all the same: Not one could be enchanted by a machine. Oh, they could be engraved, but they would be dead, no life to them, no matter how much mana I used.

Then again, I really should have predicted this. It was in the fucking name: Rune-terra.

All that to say, I hated making these things. I felt like I was being grounded in elementary school, being made to write "I will not poke people in the butt. I will be more considerate of other people's privacy," over and over again.

I got to put them off in favor of my armor for a bit. Because Winter's Approach absorbed mana much like the Tear of the Goddess, it was to everyone's benefit that I wear the damn thing as much as possible. Eventually, it'd turn into Fimbulwinter in a grand ritual, on this coming winter solstice if I could swing it.

After that, I waited until I had my lab up and running in Babylon, with enough capacity to create relic stone in bulk.

As the shaped Worldstones and pylons came off the assembly line, I enchanted them off and on, as much as I could in one sitting without driving myself spare from boredom. Whenever I got bored, I sketched out new ideas, finished up my magic scissors, and dabbled in shoemaking. After all, Babylon was largely self-sustaining.

The sluggish pace was fine, but it did leave me with a fair bit of backlog for a few months.

And now, I was finally, finally done.

Nine Worldstones, forty pylons, and forty-nine Wayfinders were laid out before me, the work of months and months of tedious labor.

The plan was simple: Each Worldstone was to be placed in one of nine major cities in the United States, adding the one in DC to make ten. They were New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, DC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, and Phoenix. Said stone and pylons, one per cardinal direction, would form a node in the network, allowing the Wayfinders to create portals to any location within the broad web.

Alongside the one in Hero's position, each of the ten cities were to receive five Wayfinders, to be distributed to the local Protectorate Leader and whoever they chose.

Other than the one in Hero's possession, none of the Wayfinders were attuned. Instead, they had enough mana stored in them to make three portals, after which they needed to be returned to me for charging. In this way, I could ensure that they were of very limited use even if stolen or if a hero decided to go rogue.

In the event of an emergency, they were supposed to lead evacuation efforts from five preplanned points in their respective cities. The five portals would then relocate the bulk of any city's population across the US, distributing the refugees over the network to ensure that no other city received an undue burden to house and care for such a large influx.

It was a plan approved by Hero and Rebecca in her capacity as chief director. I even got a meeting with the president for it. If I didn't know he was just another stooge, I might have even felt honored.

My part in this was done as far as I was concerned. I'd make more Wayfinders and add to the nodes in the network as we went, probably one in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington state for starters, but for the most part, I could step back a bit. Now, it was up to the various state and municipal governments to create empty refugee camps outside their cities as a precautionary measure.

I felt a firm hand clasp my shoulder. "You did good," Hero said, smiling in that soft, calming way of his that still managed to radiate authority.

"Yeah. So, anyone bitching about having to build housing for refugees that might never come?"

"As always, yes. Budgets are tight all around and no one wants to be told that their backyards are going to be repurposed for endbringer response. Hell, no one even likes thinking about those monsters."

"Do I need to invent cheap housing too?" I scowled. "Because if I do, I'm going to hurt someone."

"No, you've done well. Let us handle the rest of the logistics."

"That's good."

"India, then?"

I nodded. I knew what he was talking about. "July. India. Levi. I wish I knew more, but that's all I know."

"We'll be ready."

"Say, Hero?"

"What's up?"

"Kurt still has a monopoly on my potions, right? Could he use it as an incentive to push for this? You know, give them a reason to start building the camps? I'm not sure what that would look like, but there's got to be benefits to practically owning a multi-billion dollar industry, right?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Politics really isn't my thing, but I'll pass it along. That sounds like a good use of our money."

The dynamic between Hero and myself had changed significantly over the past several months. He was no longer my mentor and I was no longer a protégé he was nurturing. Instead, we were equals, executives and accomplices in the world's most secretive conspiracy.

I could tell. There were still times when he defaulted back to viewing me as a child. He would reach for my head as if to ruffle my hair or hold out a fist for me to bump, little things like that before he caught himself as he struggled with the dissonance of having a child who was in on the secret. To his credit, he was always swift to correct himself, but the warmth he held for the other Wards was greatly subdued with me.

I'd gotten what I wanted, to be treated like an adult, but it left a bittersweet taste in my mouth.

X

2001, June 8: Washington, DC, United States

"Project Isolde: Test number eight," I muttered. In my hands were my close-range weapon of choice, Gwen's scissors. In honor of the Last Queen of Camavor and Gwen's "mother," I named the scissors Isolde. What else could I name a weapon that gave me power over the Hallowed Mist?

Currently, they were in their shrunken form, barely large enough for my fingers to fit the holes. They were made for a seamstress' dainty fingers, to snip threads rather than lives. I could make them big again with a slight pulse of mana directed towards a rune matrix at the base of the grip, big enough to rival Riven's own monstrous runeblade.

I held a stick of tungsten, roughly an inch thick, in between Isolde's blades and squeezed as absolutely nothing happened. Magic doohickey Isolde might be, but I definitely didn't have the muscle to cut through the hardest metal in the world.

Then, I channeled a steady stream of my mana into the deceptively harmless weapon. The change was immediate. A rippling current of blue traveled from my fingers to the tip of the blades. With the clank of metal on metal, the tungsten fell away in two pieces.

"Test success," I spoke to the recording device. "When applied with mana, Isolde cuts through all mundane metals with ease."

"Impressive," came a voice behind me.

I jumped a little. Behind me stood Armsmaster in all his beard-tastic glory. "One of these days, I'm going to pay attention to the literal three-sixty degrees of vision I have," I grunted.

"It will be a mark of your progress as a hero," he said in that deadpan way of his.

That was the trouble sometimes with Collin Wallis. He did have a sense of humor, but it was so dry that it was hard to tell when he was actually trying to be funny and when he said something seriously. So, for the sake of being as inoffensive as possible, I smiled slightly at everything he said.

"Armsmaster, what can I help you with?"

"I require more Petricite Elixir."

I nodded agreeably. Given enough time and resources, the man really was quite brilliant. He had figured out the right combination of elixir, muscle relaxant, and hormonal sedative to depower all but the most powerful capes for an hour without completely knocking them out sometime this February. The only thing that kept him from being every trooper's new favorite hero was that the dosage required could not be concentrated in a dart without his miniaturization specialization so it couldn't be used effectively in live-fire scenarios without specialized equipment.

He did regularly sell sets of a dozen darts to various heroes across the country to pad his tinkering budget or set up an exchange with a different tinker who wasn't part of the Madhouse.

"Sure, you know where they are," I waved him off. Thanks to my mass production, I could afford to lose a dozen a month and still send a case to Phoenix for Director Lyons and my old pals.

He went to the drawer and picked out a dozen before stopping. "Your scissors have impressive cutting power."

"Thanks, Isolde will make for a hell of a close-range weapon."

"Isolde?"

"I name my weapons. Don't you?"

"No."

I shrugged. "Suit yourself."

"Why scissors? They are too short to be effective. And you have a dagger."

"Sobriety. I named the dagger too." Then, with a flick of the wrist, Isolde was no longer a pair of palm-sized fabric scissors. Now, it was massive, as long as I was tall, and it was only thanks to my training and heavily enchanted metal that I could wield it with any dexterity. "And Isolde isn't always small. It's as long as I need."

He frowned in concentration. He took the tip of the blades in hand and began to examine every inch. "How does that work?"

"Something about mana replacing mass. You know how my power works, more like enchanting than traditional tinkering. If it helps, just think of Isolde like a magic sword."

"Your powers are strange, even by our standards."

"They are," I said agreeably.

"So why scissors?"

"It just seemed right, like Isolde refused to be anything but scissors. Call it an homage if you must."

"An homage to what?"

"Life. Death. Love. The threads of fate and the light of hope."

"Strange."

I laughed. "Yes, yes I am. Did you need anything else?"

"I want to observe the rest of your tests."

"I don't mind, but why? I don't think you can gain anything from them. Our specializations are too different."

"This is likely true," he admitted, "but your creations tend to be very creative. I believe I will be able to recreate some of the things you make using my own methods."

Never one to let an opportunity pass, I grinned. "Alright, let's move to the training room. I think I'm going to need some more room for this. Oh, but I want a favor from you as well."

"Name it."

"Spar with me."

"Do you not spar with the DC Wards?"

"I do, but I need a stronger opponent, preferably one with martial arts experience."

"I was not aware you were a martial artist."

"I can beat Verdeer, Brickhouse, and Gold Rush three on one," I said, not a little proudly. "I promise that it really will be a spar, not just you teaching me how to fight."

"Impressive. We will spar once and see if our fighting styles are compatible. Is that agreeable?"

I nodded happily. "You won't be disappointed."

"We'll see."

X

We soon found ourselves in one of the training rooms. It was one used mainly for sparring and consisted mostly of empty space rather than a shooting range or similar.

"Project Isolde: Test number nine," I said for the mic. The eighth test was tungsten, the naturally occurring metal with the highest tensile strength. Logically, test nine graduated from natural metals to Petricite, the magic-absorbent material.

I held in hand a small block of Petricite, as pure as could be. I tried to cut it.

Cutting through Petricite was a strange experience. It was marble-like, but at the end of the day, it was wood, plant fiber. It felt thick, meaty almost in a way that tungsten did not. Metal easily separated once enough pressure was applied, too rigid to bend. Maybe it was the mana-absorbent property of the wood, but Petricite felt as though it had more substance.

I had to input a far larger stream of mana to cut the material. In short, if my mana was being drained at a certain rate, I needed to input more than that into Isolde to keep up the cutting enchantment.

I did manage it, but it took more out of me than expected.

"Test clear. Isolde can cut Petricite if fed enough mana to overwhelm the rate of absorption." I then enlarged Isolde until it was as large as a longsword sized for me. With a bit of focus, Isolde's primary ability manifested itself in the form of wisps of mist. There was a connection that formed between me and the mist, one I'd need to explore in greater detail later. I could feel anything in it and I knew that it'd be one more sense to foil strangers with. "Project Isolde: Test number ten. Armsmaster, please throw something at me."

"Understood."

He grabbed a ball used for dodge practice and hurled it my way at medium speed. I thought about guarding and the Hallowed Mist answered. What had started as a thin haze around the pair of scissors expanded and thickened until it formed a curtain of dense mist around my person. This was Gwen's Hallowed Mist, I realized.

It was Isolde's mist.

Gwen was a fetter, one link in the chain that connected the scattered fragments of Isolde's soul. She was the most beloved of these links, the one with the greatest sentimental connection to the lost queen. And so, the Hallowed Mist answered to her.

It was almost poetic how the mist recognized its queen, even so many centuries later.

The mist formed a sphere around my person, condensing into something deeper, denser, and parrying the ball.

"Harder, please," I said. "Feel free to use your armor's augmented strength."

"Understood."

We proceeded like that. Eventually, we graduated from dodgeballs to darts, pistols, and eventually to full swings and stabs of Armsmaster's pneumatic halberd. This wasn't some in-game skill; there was no distinction between melee and ranged weapons. I merely needed to think about guarding against something and the mist answered.

'Do I… Do I even need the Blitzshield anymore?' I wondered.

Yes, yes I did. At the end of the day, the shield was a symbol. What was a turtle without his shell? More important than just PR reasons, the Blitzshield presented a uniquely upgradable tech, one that could be customized with any number of hextech innovations. It was also an EMP, which practically guaranteed me a win against the vast majority of tinkers.

'If the shield is lagging behind, then I should work to upgrade it, not think about throwing it away,' I concluded.

"Your defense is impressive," Armsmaster admitted, breathing a little ragged from the spontaneous exercise.

"Thank you. I figured that the mist could pull double duty as cover. I can see through it with my Oracle's, but no one else can."

"Indeed. How long have you been working on this project?"

"Since before I became Hyunmu," I said with a proud smile. I could see the slight tinge of jealousy in his eyes, only tempered by the fact that I was a fellow tinker. Hopefully, by reminding him of how hard I worked, he'd be a bit more manageable. I didn't need the Dauntless treatment. I looked down, as though morose. "I made it when I was with the Crips. A prototype version of this was supposed to be my ace in the hole before I was rescued by Alexandria."

"I see."

"Yeah, I'm really glad I can finally bring it to life. Isolde means a lot to me, as much as my Ymelo."

"It is a reminder of your past."

"It is. And a reminder to cut the threads.'

"Were there any other tests?"

I shook my head. I had my suspicions about Isolde, but those could wait until I was in private. "None at this time. Thank you for your assistance, Armsmaster."

He nodded stiffly. "It was my pleasure. I will be in this room at six in the morning tomorrow if you wish to spar."

"Tomorrow is a Saturday and I promised I would spend it with mom. Monday?"

"Monday."

As we went our separate ways, I started to think. I knew that as my connection to the World Rune strengthened, my connection to Runeterra would likewise deepen. I knew that Isolde was a unique weapon, one intrinsically tied to the history of the Shadow Isles and Camavor. But the mist…

I hadn't expected such a powerful connection between it and myself. I may have written the runes, but their full effects still caught me a little off guard.

Now that I was alone, I focused and tucked Isolde in my pocket before grabbing one of the three thin spikes on the loop. A trail of thread, woven directly from the Hallowed Mist, followed my finger.

This… This had possibilities…