Chapter 372

If there was an award for theatricality, Sonya would have to pass it off to Amos in that moment. He stood there with his arms outstretched surrounded by six of the most powerful controlled sources of energy on the planet, under a high output light, in a hidden base deep within the marianas trench. She pursed her lips and crossed her arms, squinting at him with amusement while Cass tilted her head slowly to the right before leaning towards her mother. “...is Uncle Amos usually this theatrical?”

Sonya grinned broadly and clapped, “Nope, but I’m loving it.”

Amos straightened his labcoat with a smirk, nose in the air. “Yes, yes, praise me, once again the father of a new age,” he said dramatically, bowing a few times.

“So um… question?” Cass asks, raising her hand.

He points her way, “Yes! My favorite niece!”

“What… are they?”

Sonya whipped her head to the side and stifled a snickering laugh, covering her mouth while Amos stared, gobsmacked at her. He slowly turned his head towards Sonya as her shoulders shook, trying as hard as she could to contain it. He narrowed his eyes. “...you brought her here and you didn’t tell her what you were working on?”

“I mean,” Cass said quickly. “The door says Reactor Room. So I know they’re reactors.” She crossed her arms and fixed him with a stare.

Sonya cleared her throat and grinned at Amos, gesturing to the mighty machines around him. “Yes, please explain, Doctor.”

His lip twitched but he couldn’t resist the opportunity to brag some more. He stepped back and gestured to the machines. “Mana Crystals are just one of the many things we find in dungeons. They are rich with energy but only companies like ASTA and its competitors can make anything productive out of them. The problem with Mana Crystals is, besides refining them into materials, they’re finite in the energy they contain.”

He held up a finger. “But they store mana!” he said with a grin. “So I figured you could put more in,” he gave a wary grin. “That process took far longer than I care to admit to figure out, it ended explosively, a lot.”

Sonya winced but merely shook her head. “How’d you do it?”

Amos shrugged almost lazily and picked at his ear. “I simulated an empty zone of mana using the tech we put in mana suppressing cuffs and tricked ambient mana to pour into the crystals at a constant rate, like how when a dungeon starts to form,” he said as if that was a perfectly sane thing to do. He rapped the glass of one of the reactors. “These things are basically giant whirlpools pulling Mana from the surrounding air, storing it, and then drawing it out of the crystals to power everything in the base.”

Cass tensed. “...so they’re dungeons waiting to happen?”

Amos clapped his hands, “That’s the beautiful part! How’d I get the mana to pour in?”

Sonya glanced at her daughter as Cass froze. Her eyes going wide. “Mana suppressors.”

“Mana Suppressors!” He agreed with a grin. “If a fault is detected, the mana suppressors immediately turn on, shutting down the whole system and locking the gathered mana until it burns off naturally,” he shrugged. “As long as you don’t smash the damn thing, it’s basically idiot proof.”

Sonya cracked a grin. “‘Basically’,” she repeated.

He gave her a deadpan look. “Nothing is idiot proof, boss, but I can do my best.” He let out a sigh. “The problem is that a huge reactor will look like a constantly forming dungeon on my radar, so the trick is sizing them correctly so that they blend in with the currents of mana already moving around in a local area. There’s a lot of mana currents over the oceans, so we’re good here,” he gestured to Sonya. “But for our infrastructure plan, I had to go smaller.”

Cass crossed her arms. “You mentioned that earlier,” she glanced up at Sonya. “Do I want to know?”

Sonya raised an eyebrow at her and smirked. “No, you don’t.”

Cass’ eyes widened a little and she nodded. “Got it, villain stuff.”

Sonya shot her a thumbs up and then looked back at Amos. “Keep up the good work, Doctor.”

He smirked and shot a lazy two-finger salute, “I’ll let the rest of me know when I resync.”

Sonya shook her head with a laugh. “I’ll get out of your hair, Amos,” she said and turned away. He was already looking back at his reactors with rapt appreciation, his tired eyes gleaming with new ideas that hadn’t been there moments before. Sonya led Cass out to the area outside of the reactor room and grinned at her. “Want to keep checking in with me?”

Cass checked her watch. “I have a few more hours before everyone wakes up, and I want to see this Alps base.”

Sonya smirked. “Good answer.” she said and waved her hand. “We’re off!” she declared, flourishing a dramatic gesture towards the open rectangle of rippling space. Cass snorted and walked through. 

Sonya glanced back at the door and her eyes narrowed. Be careful, Amos. Don’t push it, she thought as she passed through, stepping out into the temperate atmosphere of the crowded interior of her Alps ‘vault’. She took a moment to appreciate her mountain of ill gotten gains. The central figure of the entire room was a holographic display depicting the ‘file’ of the obelisk she had stolen despite Protean’s best efforts to stop her. The lustrous glow of an obscene number of stacks of gold ingots lined one wall up to the ceiling on pallets. Rows of tables were set on another side of the room, the contents of Erebus’ dungeon reward vault, then of course there was the more dangerous treasure.

Dozens of Legionnaires stood at attention, their weapons raised to their chests and their wings folded back as they waited for her command. A small army ready to deploy at a moments notice. Cass stood before them and the rest of her treasures with a look of something between awe and confusion on her face. “Holy shit mom…”

Sonya laughed. “I know right?”

“How much gold is… where?”

“Erebus,” Sonya said calmly and walked past the legion, eyeing each of them in turn. As warriors against Epic and Heroic tiers, they were largely effective, especially in numbers. They were proving more and more ineffective except as cannon fodder against mythics or heaven forbid another enemy that had crossed the threshold. She knew there were more forms she could draw out from the ability she’d merged in, but honestly until the fight with First Wind she hadn’t given it much thought. Especially with Verdict and Volition at her disposal.

I need to optimize, she thought as Cass continued looking around.

“I didn’t realize how pretty they were, up close,” Cass murmured. “They’re just marble statues.”

“They’re a bit tougher than that,” Sonya chuckles, “But yeah.”

Cass looked down at the sword in the legionnaires hand up at its body and its expressionless face, then she turned back to her with a raised eyebrow. “So, this is where Queen August’s loot is, right?” she asked.

Sonya snorted and rolled her eyes dramatically. “Alright, alright! We’ll look for a ring!” she laughed, walking past the marble made terracotta army, they went up into what was once a lounge. There, the jewelry that had been stolen by Queen August was sorted into trays. It was a bit haphazard, but there was so goddamn much of it that Sonya had given up trying to categorize it neatly and had just let the Legionnaires basically set it all apart.

Cass frowned next to her. “Mom?”

Sonya chuckled. “I know, bad form for a woman who sells high fashion goods.”

Cass shook her head and walked in, looking for the tray that said ‘Rings’ and began sorting through. Sonya crossed her arms and leaned against the archway leading into the room. Admittedly, she should be joining in, but part of her wanted to see what Cass could find. That and, while she knew fashion well enough, Chunhua had been the one to propose last time around. But I’ve been avoiding asking that question that I told Carla I’d ask.

She exhaled. Life’s been a little wild, though, hasn’t it?

Erina’s presence resurfaced. A gross understatement.

Oh good, you’re here, Sonya thought wryly.

Checking in, she’s picking a ring for you? Erina asked. Are you sure?

I have a few thoughts of what I’m going to do, she’s my daughter, Erina. I want to let her participate. Sonya thought with a warm smile. That and I’m a little nervous about actually doing the thing.

She’ll say yes, Erina said bluntly.

I know that, Sonya thought blandly.

Ah, performance anxiety, as you mentioned to that buffoon representative, your company doesn’t provide any treatments for that, I’m afraid I can’t help either, Erina teased.

Sonya’s eye twitched and her lips curled up in a smirk. Oh now you’re being mean.

Just factual, dear sister, Erina said. I spoke with Erebus about your… unique idea for future missions. He’s amused by it at the very least.

Sonya cracked a grin. Figured he would be. What else are you doing in there?

Learning magic, Erina said.

Sonya sat up a little. Magic?

Yes, Mimir’s group has been using it to teleport, that's what those tattoos were, Erina says. I showed them the design of the Major’s tattoo. It’s norse magic, Loki recognized it immediately. He says that they must have found a novel way to use it though, because it’s unlikely they are using it the way its intended.

Sonya raised an eyebrow. Oh? Do tell.

The only reason it works the way it does with such a small ‘coverage’ is that it’s an anchor return spell, not true teleportation. It sends you to a predesignated point that can’t be changed easily. Erina said. 

Sonya’s lips curled up into a smile. Fascinating, so either they’ve improved on a spell thousands of years old or they’ve found a way to move the anchor point more easily. Probably by attaching it to something. She chuckled. Oh Mimir, sometimes I wish you weren’t such an insufferable pest.

We’ll find him, Erina says.

Sonya exhales, I know

“Mom, hey, look at these!” Cass called.

Sonya felt Erina chuckle and slip back into the depths of her consciousness. She smiled and walked over to stand with her daughter, looking down at what she picked. Her eyebrows rose and she tilted her head. She glanced over at Cass who gave her a smirk then she looked down again. The first ring was a swirly gold band but atop it there was a sizable pink sapphire. The second was a thick platinum band set with small diamonds along the exterior. The third was a silver ring with a gaudy looking rose shaped adornment, it was set with small pink diamonds. The final one was a delicate platinum ring with a sweeping, elegant design.

Sonya whistled. “Oh, I see what you’re thinking…” she said thoughtfully and picked up the four rings. “...I love it. I’ll make some tweaks of my own while I’m at it.”

She visualized what she had in mind now, running her fingers over them. “Yeah…” she reached up and planted a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “This’ll be perfect,” she said as a narrow blade of hard light formed over her fingertip. “I can’t wait to see how it turns out.”

—

Pandora Committee Chairwoman Carla Mint strode towards her office with a look of deep dissatisfaction on her face. Her eyes narrowed as her heels clicked loudly against the floor beneath her feet. The two officials on either side of her continued their briefings. It was more of the same, spikes in villain activity, echoes of the bounties Ishtar put on dungeons. Some villains hadn’t gotten the memo that Ishtar had rolled back those bounties. That, or they had decided hitting dungeons was lucrative enough to risk growing attention from heroes.

She exhaled, “Anything else?”

“A minor note,” the official to her left, Urban said. “The UN has been making minor overtures towards some of the less influential guilds. They are being consistently rebuffed, though.”

Carla raised a brow. “Overtures? They’re trying to poach heroes from us?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She squinted at him. “That’s…” she trailed off and shook her head. “No, I shouldn’t be surprised after the latest attempted sanction.”

“Which didn’t pass,” the other official, Kline, said. “There isn’t enough political will in the UN to carry out a sanction by our member nations. We’ve become indirectly immune to oversight.”

Carla frowned. “Not exactly an ideal situation, in my opinion.”

Urban crossed his arms. “But that leaves you to act with impunity ma’am.”

“And same with my successor,” Carla said flatly. “I’m only human. I can’t run the Committee forever.”

The two men looked at one another. Kline cleared his throat, “If you’re concerned about-”

She held up a hand. “I am not going to purchase my youth,” she said flatly. “Especially not from the underworld,” she shook her head and gave a quick gesture, a dismissal. The two men nodded and turned away as she opened the door to her office, letting it shut behind her. She leaned against it and let the exhaustion hang on her for a moment. With the system they’d set up to get the Middle-East back on its feet, she was ostensibly a head of state now.

“And that bastard DuCast is making it worse,” she said irritably. “This isn’t what I wanted for the committee,” she muttered as she walked towards her desk and sat down, leaning back. “Now he’s making it seem like the natural decision to capitulate. What’s his angle? Or does he just want my support in exchange for being a spokesman?” she rubbed her chin.  “You can’t buy my favor by being a sycophant you disgusting monster,” she growled.

She let out another sigh and leaned back, closing her eyes, imagining Sonya’s face and smiling a little to herself. “What would you do? What are you doing right now?” she asked aloud as her thoughts turned next to Chunhua. “Where are you? What’s taking you so long to get back?”

She shook her head and rested her chin on her knuckles, staring at the door in front of her as if it owed her money. There was nothing she could do for either of them right now except wait. Her phone flashed out of the corner of her eye and she glanced towards it. She sat up and snatched it up. It was a text from Sonya with a picture attached.

She smiled and opened it. The image was of Sonya and Cassiopeia, a selfie on some utterly snowy mountaintop. She chuckled and started to text out a teasing message asking where Sonya was in the picture when a follow up message came.

<I got a Question for you. Dinner?>

Carla’s breath caught, her eyes softened, and she relaxed into her chair as she tapped out her response.

<Yes, please.>