Chapter 33: 4-2 Ripples

Ripples 4.2

2000, August 20: Washington, DC, USA

Inspiration danced before me, its turquoise light bathing me in a comforting glow. I'd stood in this temple countless times before, but never like this. The core of the World Rune was shining brighter than before, almost too bright to see. The nine censers that stood around the core seemed like a simple candle in comparison.

It was calling me.

"Why though?" I asked. "I haven't made anything. Hell, I wasn't even able to finish making Gwen's scissors because there was so much red tape to go through… Was it the debut? Are you trying to tell me to make a fresh start? Or maybe that I'm now fully free of Camille's master effect? Or maybe this is anticipation?"

I had no idea and I received no answers. Even if the World Rune was conscious in its own way, it wasn't the sort to give me a response. I'd just have to live with the mystery of it all.

I shook my head with exasperated fondness and stepped forward.

I did what I'd done before and reached out, expecting one of the stars inhabiting the three outer rings to descend into my hand. Information in the form of memories and knowledge would fill me, giving me an ability I didn't have before.

Or, that was what was supposed to happen.

Instead, the outer rings danced out of my way, each star grazing my fingertips and sending a bolt of heat through my body.

Just when I was getting impatient, the core ignited brighter than before. It was drawing me into the light, a promise of power I couldn't begin to comprehend.

"A… Keystone?" I tried. I knew what those were of course. In-game, they were major runes that granted immense buffs. Players would build entire playstyles around each and having the "wrong" runes was a popular excuse for those who just plain sucked at League. Normally, a player could unlock one Keystone and three lesser runes. It seemed that the World Rune before me would work accordingly.

Inspiration beckoned me forward with another pulse.

"First Strike, Glacial Augment, and Unsealed Spellbook if I remember right. Any of them would be… game changing... Do I get to choose?"

No, no I did not. The altar of the temple sported three orbs that made up the core, but I couldn't tell the difference between any of them for the life of me. I didn't need to do anything on my own though, because one of the Keystones separated itself and rested on my hand.

Then my world became pain.

Cold fire spread through me as Glacial Augment and I became one. I felt like liquid nitrogen was being injected into my veins, like my body and spirit both were being scalded and scoured raw, taken apart, only to be remade. I was getting an intimate lesson in the "augment" part of the Keystone and it was as though my entire existence was judged and found wanting.

The Keystone had taken one look at my body and soul and decided to renovate in the most excruciating way before moving in. It was the single most agonizing thing I'd ever felt in my life, and I was including both nearly drowning to death and having a charged power cable rake across my eyes.

"It carved mountains, drained oceans, and burned skies," I heard Ryze say. Or perhaps I imagined it in the delirium.

I didn't know how long I stood there as I got a firsthand experience of the power Ryze so feared. Eternity blended into a moment as I screamed myself hoarse. Until finally, the pain came to an end and I could hear myself think again.

And with my thoughts came knowledge beyond my own. Supernatural clarity washed over me like the whitewater of a newly melted stream.

As if it wasn't blatantly obvious, a Keystone was special. It wasn't just a milestone that marked my progress with a third of a World Rune. It was as its name implied: Just as the keystone of an arch was the wedge at the top that kept it all together by distributing pressure evenly throughout the structure, the Keystones were the defining pieces that held a World Rune together. They were Inspiration, distilled in a way I couldn't fully grasp.

I would one day become a celestial. A piece of the infinite dwelled in me.

On some level, I'd known that of course. I'd known exactly what the World Runes were. I was an out of context spectator and that gave me some information that not even Tyrus or Ryze had.

But it had never hit home quite so clearly before. A piece of infinity was bound to my soul.

I didn't even have to do a single thing. So long as I continued to bond with the World Rune, I would one day become immortal. The unobtainable ambition of alchemists and kings, granted to me simply because I existed.

Laughter welled up from within at the absurdity.

When even that finally petered out, I was left with the space to breathe again and examine the changes to my soul.

The Keystone could not integrate perfectly in a normal human body. So, it didn't even try. If the vessel was weak, the vessel must be changed. The icy immolation I'd felt was it forcibly changing me, turning me into something that could wield its power, turning me into an Iceborn.

I was now kin with Ashe, Braum, and others.

Becoming an Iceborn didn't magically make me as physically powerful as Braum, nor did it give me the precision and grace of Ashe. What it did give me was potential. I knew without testing that I would never again be bothered by the cold. I knew that I had an innate affinity for ice magic, though it manifested most clearly in creation, as did all aspects of Inspiration.

When I first considered my options, I discovered that making a sliver of True Ice the size of a guitar pick would cost me an overwhelming one hundred Mana Crystals. I knew now that this was because my mana wasn't suited for it. With Glacial Augment, that price was halved to start, and it would decrease further as I became stronger.

I could also manipulate ice directly, a discount pokemon, though barely more than a snowball at the moment. Now that the Minion Dematerializer was known to the PRT, I needed new aces up my sleeves and both the Hextech Flashtraption and the Glacial Augment seemed like excellent last resort weapons. Best of all, Glacial Augment didn't have a built-in ammo system.

X

I yawned and turned in my bed. I reached out and slapped the alarm clock on snooze before rolling up into my blankets again.

"Morning, my son," I heard my mom pour me a cup of Oracle's Elixir. She placed it in my hands as I sat up with bleary eyes. I drank and saw the world expand around me.

"Morning, mom," I said as I examined the premature lines on her face, lines from worrying about me, the son who was too valuable to be ignored and too weak to stand on his own.

One more reason to stop holding myself back.

In a lot of ways, I thought that my kidnapping did more damage to my mom than me. This wasn't the first time she watched me sleep. Ever since I got back, she would enter my room to check on me in the middle of the night. She was almost always awake and waiting for me in the morning. She had a compulsive need to know what I was doing at all hours, to know that I was safe.

As weird as the feeling of having someone watch me sleep was, I tried not to hold it against her.

Moving so near the sea hadn't exactly been a comforting notion. It took her weeks until she finally gave the go ahead to move us out east and even then it was only the promise of personal tutelage from the world's greatest tinker that sold it.

She was getting better, but it'd likely be a while before she trusted anyone else with my safety again.

If I was being honest with myself, I wasn't a fan of the sea either. Just looking out at the horizon made me wonder when the waves would start to rise.

I looked at mom's concerned face. She wasn't even thirty but already had creases from worrying. It made me want to murder them all over again.

"Wash up and come to breakfast. I made your favorite," she said with a watery smile as she left for the kitchen.

"Yes, mom, good morning to you too."

After a breakfast of rice and tuna omelets, I set up in the living room and flowed through the stances of the second string of kata favored by the Shojin acolytes, something about the Dragon of Ionia breathing life into the plains or somesuch. I'd graduated from the first in the past month, which really only meant that I didn't feel like my ligaments were in open rebellion after the first set.

The second was as hard as the first, though I now knew for a fact that what had felt impossible then could be achieved even with my lackluster athleticism.

"A true master is an eternal student, right, Yi?"

I rolled my hips as I took a long stride forward, arms swirling in a circle that ended with my palms meeting the hardwood floor. In Lee Sin's hands, this move would have cratered the earth and launched a shockwave that could shatter great trees.

Slowly dragging myself with one foot like a serpent, my arms rose back up into the archer stance. Then my back foot followed at the same snail's pace, curving all the way around my body in what would be a textbook horizontal snap kick if it were faster before straightening out again parallel to my torso.

All the while, I was trying to channel mana into my limbs.

It was a heady experience. Being an Iceborn didn't just mean an affinity for snow cones and poro snacks. With an affinity for ice magic came magic in general. Mana flowed more readily, which meant the Tear filled more rapidly, which in turn meant my body felt lighter, stronger, faster. I wasn't suddenly Captain America, but I moved with a fluidity and crispness that was found among seasoned martial arts masters in my old life, far beyond what an eight year old should be able to accomplish.

I'd never thought of myself as graceful before, but that was the only word that came to mind.

I slowed to a stop as mom clapped from the sofa. "That was amazing, Yusung," she said, but became hesitant. "Was that…"

"Yeah," I nodded. "It was a part of my powers."

Some doctor and a Korean translator had explained the concept of second triggers to her. I didn't correct them of course, I didn't think I even could put words to what I was. A second trigger was the most convenient way for me to handwave my new abilities away. It meant that I was the fascination of every parahuman scholar and "expert" in the world.

My "second trigger" was one more reason I was moved to DC; Johns Hopkins University was one of the best medical universities in the country and plenty of these so-called experts gathered here. The first week I'd moved here, spent my days almost exclusively in various interviews and lab settings. A second trigger open to being studied was rare, and not one had anything close to the versatility demonstrated by my own.

Cauldron likely knew otherwise, but they were happy to keep their mouths shut for their own machinations. As always.

Mom… She didn't take it too well. I was no psychologist, but for her, it was one more way in which she failed me.

I gave her a hug. "I'm going to get strong, mom," I promised, "so strong that no one can ever take me away again. So strong that even Alexandria won't be able to tell me what to do."

X

One of the perks of being forcibly relocated by the federal government, and being incredibly valuable besides, was the free housing. By the whims of the bureaucrats on high, mom and I were now among the vaunted elite of homeowners.

We, like many of the upper-middle class, didn't actually live in DC. We lived in the Clarendon neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia, three metro stops away from Foggy Bottom, home of both George Washington University and many federal buildings, including the national headquarters of the PRT.

Our house was a two room affair, three counting a small basement. Having only one car, the garage doubled as storage space for my materials. I intended to co-opt the basement into a lab. I hadn't had the chance to do much, but by the time I was done, I intended to make this house a goddamn fortress to rival the Immortal Bastion. And if the PRT had anything to say about it, fuck them.

No more holding back. No more being the backline potion dispenser. In Earth-Bet? Weakness was a sin.

I had plans. I did not forget about my promise. I swore that if I ever got out of the mess with the Crips, I'd tinker myself a way to flip two birds to masters and thinkers.

Thinkers… They were complicated. Powerful thinkers could just pull information out of their asses. Their Shards would tell them details like asshole spectators spoiling a movie. Tattletale, Contessa, Coil, and even Dinah were all examples of this.

Upon reflection, I had to admit that Lawless fell into his camp too, though he was far more limited. Had he been smarter, had he not underestimated me because of my age, had he been more cautious… I would have lost. It grated at me to admit, but I would have been forced to resort to far worse than the Dream Blossom Censer to escape. And had I done that…

A loss, no matter how I looked at it.

The problem was, I didn't think I could just make myself a blank slate to thinkers, not unless I could directly fuck up their Shards. And if I could do that, Scion wouldn't be a problem. If I couldn't interfere with the Shard network, the other option would be to make myself incomprehensible, a "does not compute" error. I… I wasn't willing to touch the Void. I wasn't that desperate yet. There were other options, but not many and none without their price. It would take a while to enact the ones I knew.

But masters though? Those were far simpler.

All parahuman master effects boiled down to two schools: body or mind. And in truth, even the latter was just nuanced body manipulation. It'd be more accurate to say that some masters manipulated the nervous and muscle systems of their victims while the rest hijacked control of the emotion centers in their brains. Cherish, Nice Guy, Valefor, and Tequila all fell into this latter category. They either overwhelmed cognitive thought with emotions or suppressed higher thoughts via Shard-assisted hypnosis.

And that was why I spent the entire day converting my stockpile of holy water into the Water of Life.

The Water of Life was such a versatile thing. An intrinsic connection to life was great, but I was interested in the more limited uses found by the Vesani: memories.

Yes… Gwen's hallowed scissors, as phenomenally versatile a weapon as they would be, were not a priority. They could stay on the backburner for a bit while I figured out the best way to lock my own memories. The Vesani were the key.