Foam hissed up to replace the barrier Noem had destroyed ten minutes prior. He leaned against the wall with an introspective frown etched onto his face that had been there ever since the apex had laid its plans bare. Noem had expected grand things; some desire to change the world, or to be the most powerful monster in all of existence, or even to spread its name to the far reaches of the world.
The apex has laughed in his face at those suggestions. Then it said two simple things that set Noem’s mind on a razor-sharp edge: “I have no anchor” and “I grow tired of the monotony”.
“The apex is bored and too powerful for its own good.” Noem muttered to himself. “How the fuck can it exist like that without an anchor to draw Qi from? Does it have so much Qi that it can afford to burn away some of its life every time it uses a skill?”
Noem shook his head. He hadn’t had the courage to ask either of those questions, as he knew the apex would answer him. This wasn’t some fresh apex that had spontaneously evolved from a random spirit. It was an unknown monstrosity that had managed to exist undiscovered for a long-ass time. Probably for the same reasons that made it undetectable through the barricade of foam.
He activated Sprint and Dash at the same time and gathered the explosives in his hands. Focus and React finished the quartet as he pushed off the dirt with enough power to shatter the ground under him.
“Shit.” Noem hissed and ground to a stop. “That looks suspicious as hell. Should I… what can I… ah, fuck it. I’ll deal with it later”
The Qi in his body carried Noem down the dimly lit perfectly square tunnel. Stagnant air washed over his face with the scent of stone and small particles of dust that scraped against his Qi like fine grit sandpaper, but Noem barely noticed any of it. He was far too focused on the map of the tunnels in front of him. An explosive smacked lightly against his palm a dozen meters from where he needed to plant it, and as he ran underneath the point, he let it fly without looking back to see if it had stuck properly.
Noem had absolute confidence in his creations. Qi was a tool to be wielded, just like tech, and could be made to bend even without the use of skills. But it could never meet the raw power of a bond. No matter what kind of explosives he made, one single concentrated fireball from a flame elemental spirit would match it. And the spirit could grow stronger with its bonded, while Noem’s grenades had hard limits.
It was unbelievably frustrating. Noem threw the second explosive up at the roof without looking and palmed the third in one fluid motion, then looked up at his map for Mona’s tracking marker. She was just about two-thirds pf the way down the tunnel, which gave him more than enough time to set the trap and seal off the other exits before she turned back.
He threw the third explosive, summoned a foaming ball of trapped Qi, and lobbed it off to the side to seal off the first exit. The simple thought that Mona was down there, and that she would get to bond an apex while he wallowed in uselessness… it hurt. It hurt so fucking much. He’d worked all of his life towards his goals, and he hadn’t even managed to break through the mortal realm.
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“Nobody gets what they deserve.” Noem muttered. “Everyone gets what they get, and you have to fucking deal with it. I’ve known that for so many years, so I can’t get bitchy now. Get Mona her bond, get her sent off to university, then I get the rest of my life for myself. To do whatever the hell I want with it.”
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Mona’s heavy breaths of effort announced her arrival before her footsteps did. Quite long before her footsteps did, in truth, as when she rounded the corner a brand new skill glowed around her feet. It took until she was less than five meters away for the sounds of her footsteps to reach Noem’s ears, and even then, they were incredibly quiet.
Noem raised an eyebrow while Mona beamed with pride. Then she bent over and coughed three wet, wracking coughs that shook her body and came with a trickle of dusty spit that spattered against the ground.
“Thirty minutes, just like I said!” She gave Noem a gesture with both her index and middle fingers raised once she’d caught her breath. “Did you get your half done?”
“Didn’t you check the ceiling on your way back?”
“I didn’t.” Mona said plainly.
At least she was being honest. Noem rolled his eyes and closed his interface, then tossed Mona a small bundle of wires with one glowing button under a glass hatch in the middle of it. “That’s the detonator. Once you push it, the charges will start exploding starting from the furthest one away from you. So don’t activate it until you’re at least halfway down the tunnel, or else you’ll end up killing yourself.”
Mona gulped as she stared down at the detonator. She carefully curled her fingers around it, then pulled it close to her chest and nodded. “Okay. Are you really not going to help me?”
Noem shook his head. “Not how you want me to. The apex is still waiting on the other side of this foam, and from my surveillance, it’s getting pretty pissed.” He lied and tapped on the foam for emphasis. “You’ll have to outrun it, trigger the explosives when you’re about two-thirds of the way down, then convince the apex to bond with you before it runs away. You’ve still got the anchor, right?”
Mona patted a pouch that was a perfect mirror of Noem’s. “Right in here.”
“Good. Show it to the apex, then make something up about how you’re going to build it a body. As long as it's something you think you can actually do for the apex, there won’t be a problem.” Noem continued. “Did you see anything at the other end that’d be bad for us?”
“Just more smoke.” Mona said. She leaned against a wall and deactivated both of her skills, then quickly turned back to Noem with glittering eyes. “Right! I came up with a new skill! I call it Muffle, and it makes all of my footsteps quieter!”
“Hmm. Muffle, huh.” Noem scratched his chin in thought. “I just use Nimble to make myself quieter. Never thought to actually use a skill for that one thing. Nice work.”
Mona grinned and closed her eyes. “Hehe, yeah. I’m amazing.”
Noem rolled his eyes again and tapped Mona on the forehead. “Well, little miss amazing, you need to Collect and Filter until you’re completely full before we start this up.”
“Right, right, the unimportant stuff. I got it.” Mona mimicked Noem’s motion of waving something off without losing her grin. “Give me a bomb and I’ll destroy the barrier when I’m ready. You go… wait at the other end or whatever you’re going to do.”
Noem studied Mona’s posture for a second, and sure enough, the constant jittering of nervous anticipation was there under all the bravado. He sighed theatrically and summoned a thumb-sized glass ball from his inventory that had a strong solvent inside of it.
“Throw this at the foam when you’re all full.” He instructed, then turned away. “Don’t forget that this isn’t your only chance, Mona. If you fail here, you can come back in a few years and try again.”
Mona stayed silent for a little while before answering. When she did, there was a strange mixture of uncertainty and resolve in her voice.
“Just because I can try again, doesn’t mean I want to fail.”
The sentiment struck Noem right in the heart. He raised a hand and waved to Mona as he walked away, leaving her to her own devices to execute a plan that was originally hers. Whether she succeeded or failed was now completely and utterly under her control.
How she reacted to the result–good or bad–would irreversibly shape her future.