Chapter 43: Internal Affairs or Something

Perspective: Freak


I was in a splendid mood. Glibby had once again made a fool of himself in front of everyone and people beyond the upper leadership were catching onto his repeated failure. I sometimes heard engineers or even kitchen staff gossip with lowered voices about the extent of the Ape's failings and his inability to settle his grudge with the demon child. The child part was honestly what had caused the rumors to explode, because at the end of the day, a child was still a child.

I chuckled to myself, no there was no shortage of entertainment within the walls of the Tower, or outside of it. That Destiny girl really had fallen for my "humanity rubbing off on me" spiel, but in all honesty, who could blame her? Desperate and hungry for revenge as she was, she'd probably have made deals with worse. In the end all that mattered was that I now had someone from the other side I could use. Because other than my exact reasons, there had been a lot of truth in what I told her. The Entity was too unpredictable, too alien to rely on. However, as it stood I preferred to keep options open and Destiny was just one of them.

I was currently floating around somewhere between reality and the dreamscape, which I was barred from entering fully, such was the price of a physical form. In this state I could easily travel throughout the Tower, ignoring walls and whatever dimensional origami the Entity had performed to fit everything into the building. It was slower than teleportation but had the enormous upside of being able to observe anything that went on in the physical world. I'd go back to reality fully if I found something interesting, sometimes to listen in on a conversation, other times to report sabotage, I still had some obligations after all.

My current destination was Dr. Mercury's personal lab. It had been somewhat of a hotspot for me in recent days. She did some very interesting research there, at least when she wasn't out in the fortified village gathering data. I usually wasn't one for science, like magic it was something I had no affinity for, however what she was doing was different. Her research concerned itself with whatever the mage called Shadow did, though at this point calling her a mage would probably be as accurate as calling me a poltergeist, her "duel" with the Entity had made it very clear that she was something else.

When I swooped close to Dr. Mercury's lab, I noticed that she was not alone, a second person was currently in the process of walking in the door. By their stature I instinctively assumed this to be the Ender but no, it turned out that it was Claw.

Claw was… interesting to say the least, he was different from anyone I had ever met before, perhaps outside of his flipside Fire, but that was a given. Claw claimed he feared nothing and unlike anyone else who had made that claim, it actually seemed to be true. Then again, I once thought the same about the Entity as well.

I materialized right beside Dr. Mercury, invisibly of course. She was currently sitting at a desk with multiple monitors on it, whatever they displayed was way beyond my understanding. She quickly got up and turned towards the door.

Claw said: "So, my mind recently brought some things to my attention that I think you'd be quite interested in."

No greeting, no big introductions, straight to the point, that was Claw.

Dr. Mercury seemed to relax, she said: "Hello Claw. What kinds of things do you mean? Perhaps related to the negative energy readings I'm analyzing right now?"

Claw closed the door behind him, took a few steps into the room and then sat down in the large chair that the Ender used whenever she visited Dr. Mercury.

He said: "Exactly those, except that they're not really negative-"

Dr. Mercury cut him off. "-but only below the ambient noise threshold our sensors are calibrated to, I know. Sadly, the term has already taken hold and getting everyone to use 'null energy' or something of the sort would be more effort than it's worth. But anyways, continue."

Claw said: "I happen to know a few things about what causes these readings, it seems the other one did a great deal of research in that direction. What I'm getting from it is that the readings are caused by tears in reality, exposing the Void."

Dr. Mercury replied: "No, Void energy is different from those readings."

Claw shook his head. "Looks like we have another word problem here, the Void beneath the bedrock is distinct from the Void between worlds. The former is actively opposed to matter and very energetic, the latter is emptiness in its purest form, the concept of our spatial dimensions and time does not exist between the worlds."

Dr. Mercury was now pacing around the room, one hand behind her back, the other holding her chin. "We never did perform any research into what was between worlds, simply because it was out of reach. We never had and still have no way of parting the fabric of reality to access the Void between worlds. I can't imagine the energy required to perform such a feat."

Claw stood up and walked over to the monitors Dr. Mercury had been using, taking a look at whatever was written on them. I honestly expected the conversation to be a little more interesting but no luck so far. I just had to wait.

After a few minutes of observing the readouts, Claw spoke again: "Most of what's here doesn't hold much value, beyond telling us that something definitely tore a hole into reality. Look Veronica, I'll be honest with you."

Dr. Mercury flinched at the mention of her first name, an image of the Entity appearing in her mind. Aha. Apparently, the Entity had threatened her with something and used her first name, must have been pretty bad if she reacted that way. Definitely something to keep in mind.

Claw continued: "Most of what you're doing is strictly science, rigid and explainable. This goes beyond science into the realm of magic, or at least what people say is magic. The truth is, look at something long enough and you'll find rules and patterns."

Dr. Mercury replied: "Sufficiently analyzed magic, I get you. Now, you said Fire did a lot of analyzing, with what results?"

Claw sat down in the chair again. "One result: Shadow."

Stopping her pacing, Dr. Mercury looked at me, or rather through me and at Claw. "I think that needs a bit of context."

Claw explained: "I'm still a bit hazy on why, but I know that at some point the other one came up with a ritual to separate a mind from the brain it is housed in, apparently amplifying magical capabilities at the same time but for him the separation was the important point. In his world he founded what he called the 'Ascension Project'."

Dr. Mercury nodded. "Good name, vague, ominous, grandiose. What exactly was it?"

Claw gesticulated as he explained. "In short, they had a lot of volunteers, without quotation marks, who they used to iron out the problems in the ritual. I can draw you some illustrations later for the exact process if you want me to."

"Please do."

Now this conversation was much more interesting than the technobabble or arcanobabble from earlier, whichever of the two it was. I positioned myself closer to them, listening with full attention.

Claw said: "They went through roughly a hundred and fifty subjects, some died, some lived, two became impervious to magic. After that they were finally ready to perform it on Shadow, the dirty secret was that the ritual as it was intended would only work on Shadow, just that the other one didn't exactly know at the time, he only found out later. Something about her was different, and whatever that difference was made the ritual change her." Claw paused, apparently trying to coax some more information out of his mind. "The results were impressive, magical prowess beyond anything known, the ability to focus on a seemingly unlimited amount of things, and oh, yeah any mind that comes in contact with hers is obliterated."

Dr. Mercury slowly said: "Some of that is starting to sound familiar. Especially the part about the minds."

Oh yes, very familiar in fact. This was exactly what I hoped to hear, a confirmation for my suspicions.

She continued: "So if your information is accurate, we could be dealing with a being that is similar to the Entity in principle but different in many aspects. This would certainly explain how she managed to survive direct contact with the Entity."

I silently chuckled to myself, not only that but she also struck fear in our glorious leader's metaphorical heart.

Claw said: "That sounds about right, problem is that after that I can't really access more information about her. Whatever she did in that village and in the battle, she couldn't do it before."

Dr. Mercury said: "You mean she's… growing, no, developing in some way? We know the Entity becomes more powerful as Nexus absorbs worlds but what is her power source?"

Claw froze, only the reflections of lights in his black eyes slightly moving betrayed that his eyes were darting around the room.

He said: "I just got something, a memory that isn't from the other one. It's a… string? It's attached to what I think is my body and it's going… somewhere. No clue what it means."

Dr. Mercury seemed to take a few seconds to think, then replied: "If it's in any way consistent with how your other memories are triggered, it's got something to do with Shadow. But nevermind that, do you think there is anything we can do to combat Shadow?"

Claw seemed distracted when he answered but quickly focused again: "From what I can tell reality is like an eggshell in reverse, difficult to break from the inside but easy from the outside. She's capable of tearing holes in reality, which implies that at least some part of her exists between worlds. Which means if we want to hurt that part of her, we need something that has similar characteristics."

Yes, that's what I want to hear.

Dr. Mercury continued his train of thought: "The crystals have a part that extends out of our world. But a crystal on a stick doesn't sound like it would do anything. We'd need something more sophisticated, like the machine but different." She stopped. "You know what, I don't think we should continue down that train of thought."

Claw nodded. "She's similar to the Entity so whatever we come up with that hurts her, can potentially hurt it too. I don't think it's worth the risk, the whole reason I killed the Prophet was because he was a potential danger in that exact regard."

"And we're not going to build something that can harm the Entity only for it to somehow fall into rebel hands. That's amateur stuff, we know better than that." Dr. Mercury concluded.

I was half a mind to fully materialize and punch a wall, they were so close to making my life a whole lot easier. I sighed. The hard way it was then, at least I learned some things that could be useful.

I slid out of the physical world again, I was quite honestly bored of listening to those two talk and my frustration didn't help either. My destination was not far, my personal chambers.

I technically had no need for a living space of my own since I lacked the typical physical needs of food, drink and sleep that mortals had but the privacy was still a big plus. After all, I was the only phantom in the Tower, nobody spied on the spy.

There was a desk in my chambers that I only used to write reports on who was doing what, easily the most boring part of my job especially since actual sabotage was rare. I opened a drawer and took out a small yellow crystal. It was time to arrange a meeting with a certain vengeful rebel.