Omen 6.6

2001, December 3: Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

Most of my days began in the salt flats of Bolivia. When I didn't have an early morning spar against Armsmaster or some Cauldron emergency meeting, I found the mirror-like surface to be a balm to soothe my soul. It was peaceful here, a refuge away from my responsibilities.

Here, I could table the concerns in my life for a while and focus on personal improvement to the exclusion of everything else. There was something about this moving meditation that made me seek it out, even when there were arguably better uses of my time.

I swept Isolde up, slashing an imaginary foe from left hip to right shoulder before flowing with that momentum into a spinning kick that was more for show than substance. Halfway through the kick, I allowed my standing knee to buckle, switching targets from the temple to the kidney. In my hand, Isolde extended an extra foot, gaining mass and acting as a counterweight to keep me balanced through the maneuver.

The motions themselves weren't as important anymore. When I first began, I started with a foundation of Shojin kenpo, rigidly going through the basic forms as though they were religious dogma. I didn't deviate from a single strike or stance for fear that I'd do something wrong. Maybe there was some deep, inherited secret behind why Lee moved his hand this specific way. Maybe it was the best way to channel mana to reinforce my body and any other way would ruin my development or something.

It was stupid; my life wasn't a xianxia manhua, but I couldn't help but carry those worries anyway. It wasn't as though there was anyone else learning magic kung fu I could go to for advice.

Every time I tried a new stance, I would meditate for hours prior, searching through the experiences of masters and acolytes alike for some secret I might have missed.

Over time, I grew bolder. I started to realize that in the end, magic kung fu was still kung fu. Forms were taught in structured formats to acolytes, but it was all but expected that as they grew, they'd develop their own styles and idiosyncrasies. Some were more aggressive and direct while others were passive or elusive. From the Eye to the Scales to the Claws and Horns, everyone built on the same foundation in different ways.

And so, as the months passed, I did what no one else could: I adopted different styles. It was practically heresy to a purist, but there was no one to tell me no. I picked up the basics of Wuju from Yi, the same type of movement technique he taught to Wukong. I doubted I'd ever be as naturally agile as one of the Shimon vastaya, but seeing how I shamelessly ripped off his cloud-striding boots, I didn't see why I shouldn't learn to move like him.

Seeing how both our weapons extended and contracted at will, I also learned to balance in similar ways, making up for my lack of a tail with whirling arms and spontaneously forming ice to act as counterweights. Before I knew it, though I'd initially searched for Yi's experiences to learn the sword, I ended up looking a bit like a strange mix of Lee, Yi, and Wu.

I couldn't call myself a master, far from it. If any of them could critique my style, it'd probably look slapdash to their eyes. But even so, this style was my own and one day, I swore I'd be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with them.

I flipped through the air, the mass accelerator prototype weighing heavy on my shoulder. It wasn't ready so it was mostly there for me to get accustomed to the weight. I threw out three spirit-needles with my right hand and whirled in the opposite direction with my left, sending my body into a small spiral.

Turning, I fired another salvo of spirit needles in a different direction even as my fingers clawed at the mist beneath me. The ice crystalized over my left hand and the sudden weight dropped my momentum downward for a moment, slowing my rotation and stabilizing me in the air. I released the ice and watched as it scattered into snowflakes on the wind.

I kicked off the air and dashed forward, punching downward with Isolde's handle acting as brass knuckles. The punch turned into a front kick, then Isolde extended rapidly, stabbing into the ground as my other foot rose towards my imaginary opponent's temple, the ice forming into a wicked hook that would have taken someone's head clean off.

Armsmaster was right. Just because I had a weapon didn't mean I should neglect the rest of my body.

I settled down and let out a deep breath. Looking around, I saw that the six needles I fired were about where I expected, though not where I wanted them to be.

I'd taken to using the spirit-threads that connected me to each needle to try and control their trajectory. I could manage three, but six was a bit much at the moment.

With a flourish, Isolde parted like the jaws of a great beast. I swept the threads in between its blades before twirling and shutting it to snip the threads. One day, I wanted to use these threads to trap or cut my opponents, perhaps even use Isolde's opened form to parry attacks from unorthodox angles.

X

It didn't take me long to return my armor to the locker in the Madhouse and head home to freshen up.

I let out a satisfied sigh as the heated water fell on me, soothing the burning in my muscles. The water was turned as hot as the faucets allowed. Scalding for anyone else, quite pleasant for an Iceborn. I stepped out of the shower and tossed a Biscuit out the window only to watch it vanish into a Doorway. I didn't think I'd ever get one on Fortuna; this was more of a game than anything now, though she promised she'd make me step on Legos for the rest of my life if I soaked a Biscuit in pickle juice again.

I believed her. Fortuna could be remarkably petty.

"Morning, mom," I greeted as I wandered into the kitchen. I could smell seaweed soup boiling in a pot and mom rolling an omelet with diced spam, onions, and scallions on a square frying pan. Over the months, we came to an understanding: She did the cooking; I did the baking.

"Start setting the table, Yusung. Rice is almost ready."

I opened the cabinets and handed her two bowls for the rice, two for the soup, and one larger plate for the omelet. "Mom, do we not have water in the fridge?"

"We do, it's the yellow bottle."

"That's barley tea."

"That's water."

I made a face. Second life or not, I couldn't get used to the stuff. "Why…"

"It's good for you."

"The Biscuits keep us in perfect health anyway."

"Well now you'll be in even better health," she said in that finite way all moms could.

I sighed but didn't argue. The last time I did that, mom made a cold-brew tea out of onion peels. It just wasn't worth it.

The two of us enjoyed our breakfast of rice, soup, and omelet. Seaweed soup sounded strange to a lot of people, but it was a cultural dish, so much so that it was always served on birthdays. Dad used to say that you couldn't count yourself as having aged a year if you didn't eat a bowl of this on your birthday.

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It tasted a bit briny thanks to the seaweed and clams, but that saltiness added to the warm, soothing sensation of the soup. It was a little odd to eat omelet with ketchup and seaweed soup, all over rice, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I smiled as I saw my mom's hand. Adorned on each of her four fingers was a set of simple, silver bands, each engraved with a complex set of runes from the Unsealed Spellbook: Teleport, Cleanse, Heal, and Barrier. I considered talismans, but rings were a lot harder to misplace or steal.

Every ring was attuned to her soul and arranged to siphon mana without needing to be manipulated, much like Hero's Wayfinder. She couldn't activate them voluntarily, but that didn't matter. Thanks to her constant diet of Biscuits, she had enough mana to trigger the runes. They were an emergency evacuation device, set to move her to my lab in Babylon. The Custodian had instructions on what to do should that happen, along with a few vials of the Elixir of Life and spare living quarters.

I made Fortuna promise to keep mom alive. It was one of the conditions for my cooperation, but there was always the possibility of an accident. One bad trigger and even the Eye of Abaddon would be helpless. Fortuna's protection meant a great deal, but it wasn't absolute so this was just an extra safety net to be sure.

X

I stepped into the Madhouse and made a beeline for my workstation. There, I removed the yet unnamed mass accelerator from my armor and deployed it onto my table. It was almost complete. As it was, if I fired it, the light bullet would travel nearly two miles before losing cohesion. The recoil would then travel through the modified stock and into my shoulder before passing through the pauldron and out into the larger, wing-like piece behind.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that the four cannisters arranged like a wing on his back weren't just ammunition; those things were designed to balance him while he was shooting and shunt some of that kinetic energy away from his body. It was akin to skyscrapers that had heavy pendulums at higher floors. The recoil was the wind, the stock and ammo-wing-thingy was the pendulum, and Jhin was the building. Simple.

I wasn't thinking much, so I didn't build with that in mind. I had to go back and reassemble the whole damn thing, but at least it solved my recoil problem. I wouldn't be dislocating my own arm firing a coilgun anytime soon.

This, hopefully, would be the final prototype. In the future, I could work on unique ammunition cells instead of just an enhanced version of Lucian's Piercing Light.

After getting that squared away, I thought about Penelope, Stingray. Not that I'd built an emergency evacuation device for mom, I wanted to build something unique for each of the Phoenix Wards. Not only was she my former Leader, she also had a December birthday.

She was also the easiest to build for. After all, her power was shockingly simple. She was a minor brute with a blaster power centered around thrusting and drilling motions. She was no Lily with her bullshit, multi-dimensional all-pierce, but she boasted some respectable firepower at decent range. She once bragged that she could punch a hole through a car door if I remembered right. She also loved superhero comics and even named her finisher the "Stingray Straight" and her emergency electric baton the "Stinger."

Yes, she was that kind of girl. She graduated to the Protectorate, but last I heard, she was still happily shouting cheesy one-liners and making boxing puns. If nothing else, it probably helped a lot with marketing.

She reminded me of another law enforcement officer, one who was also quite punch-happy and had a snarky, sarcastic streak a mile wide. Back in Phoenix, I couldn't make her Vi's Atlas Gauntlets because I lacked the infrastructure to build hextech. Back then, I was still Rubedo and had yet to "second trigger."

Now, with the resources available to me, the gauntlets would be the work of a single week at most even with me having other commitments. There were a lot of little parts to make each finger as dexterous as an organic hand and installing a Barrier module could be tricky, but in the grand scheme of things, the Atlas gauntlets weren't all that complicated.

They were remodeled versions of the chem-powered pulverizer gauntlets used in Zaun's mines. They moved heavy things, crushed large rocks, and otherwise augmented the wearer's strength to make a hard day beneath the earth a little more bearable. The Atlas variants could store mana via a hextech battery and release enough thrust to crumple a vault door, but none of the principles behind them were difficult, nothing like the mass accelerator or Galio.

The most complicated part of the gauntlets was a tricky bit of engineering that balanced the weight of the gauntlets mid-punch, reducing the strain put on Vi's shoulders.

I'd have to leave Penny precise instructions on how to attune it to herself so that she could trigger the thrust Vi was so known for. Better yet, I'd just guide her through the process during our weekly movie night. Given she had no Biscuit nor an Elixir of Sorcery, her soul probably wouldn't be able to fuel more than a few charged hits per day, but the gauntlets would be significant even without active mana input.

Best of all, with the additional firepower, she should be more than capable of duking it out the local heavy hitters if it came down to it.

X

2001, December 4: Washington, DC

I wasn't surprised to find myself in the temple of my soul. It had been a full six months since I unlocked Unsealed Spellbook and though I hadn't completed any new standalone projects, I'd done plenty to progress. Since June, I added twelve cities to the Worldstone Network, expanding into Canada. I also started mass production of brightsteel in preparation for Galio, designed and built miniature prototypes of the golem's power source and cooling system, built the Plaza Guardian as a proof of concept, and was all but finished with the mass accelerator. Finally, I'd taken to enchanting various pieces of my gear with spells from the Unsealed Spellbook and using them as jumping off points for additional studies.

As I progressed from an alchemist to an industrialist, I was starting to realize that the act of creation didn't necessarily have easily defined starts and stops. I initially thought that the World Rune activated only when I made a certain number of new creations, but tonight proved me wrong. Progress was the constant application of new and old ideas in different configurations. From the cooling system to the Guardian's AI, everything had been done before, but it was the usage that marked it as something different, something new.

And of course, there was the Mask. Of the more prominent aspects of death, only the Fading Icon and the Lamb and Wolf were left. It was nearing completion and I could feel an aura of finality simply by being around it. Immortality was something I still wrestled with, but one way or another, it was something I knew I'd need to come to grips with.

If I wanted the strength to oppose the endbringers and Scion, if I wanted the slightest chance at ending the Cycle, then I couldn't shy away from my potential. Whether through the Mask Mother or another means, one way or another, the World Rune would make me more than human.

I smiled up at the dais where the World Rune spun merrily. Its twelve nodes reflected a dizzying array of constellations across the sky outside, like the hand of some cosmic deity painting with stars and nebulae. It took my breath away, every time like the first time. I wondered if this was at all similar to what people saw at the peak of Targon.

I'd be sure to ask the Astral Fox if I ever saw her again.

"Wonder what it is this time? Approach Velocity? Perfect Timing? Future's Market?" I walked up the steps, giddy and shaking with anticipation. It had almost become a game of sorts. The World Rune seemed to have an ironic sense of humor, especially for something that didn't talk at all.

When I made my relic pistol, it gave me the Minion Dematerializer as if to say, "Meh, I can do better."

When I was stuck with the Crips, it gave me Hextech Flashtraption, but with enough restrictions on it as to make escape unlikely.

When I felt overwhelmed and cornered by the looming threat of Leviathan and Hero's death, it gave me Biscuit Delivery as if to tell me to relax.

I didn't know if it had some kind of sentience or if my soul was subconsciously reaching for what I needed most at the moment, but I did know that the boons tended to be timely and useful, even if they never solved my problems outright.

I reached out even as one of the four lesser runes leapt to my hand. It reminded me almost of an eager puppy, happy to be adopted. My hand touched the star and… nothing happened.

I felt a smile split my face from ear to ear.

Normally, lesser nodes felt like the fiery warmth of mana, like I'd drank nothing but energy drinks all day. Keystones hurt, as expected of anything that fundamentally reshaped my body and soul. This one, this one felt like nothing because nothing needed to change. The rune slotted into my soul like a puzzle piece I never knew I was missing.

Right here, in this moment, was Perfect Timing.

Author's Note

Shimon is Wukong's tribe of monkey vastaya.

In Korean, "bap," or "rice," is also used almost universally to replace "meal" or "food" in a tableside context. I'm told that's not unusual in other Asian countries either. Rice really does mean that much to us.

Barley tea is often consumed like water in a lot of households. The onion peel tea thing is something my mom actually did for a while until dad put his foot down. It tasted… not terrible, which is about as much as I can say about it.

Fabled's Random Animal Fact: Rattlesnakes rattles are not maracas. They do not have a pouch filled with hard bits that they shake around. Rattles are actually specially formed scales that fit over each other. Also, they're getting quieter because people are more likely to hunt down rattlers that stand out. Humanity is accidentally breeding for stealthed rattlesnakes.

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