Aether shot up Dellen’s arm.

He tried to flinch away, but his arm didn’t want to move.

Panic bubbled up from deep within and tried to come out in a hysterical laugh. His lips didn’t move; his eyes were locked in place, and he wasn’t breathing.

Dellen’s world narrowed to a single point in his mind, he was screaming, and no one could hear him.

His heart should have been racing, but it was unmoving and still in his chest.

Aether pulsed up his arm.

The idea of a clock ran across his mind, pushing back the panic for just a moment.

The Aether surged relentlessly through his body, its energy threatening to overwhelm him. The sensation a paradoxical mixture of raw power and absolute immobility.

The image of a clock persisted in his mind, steadying him as he fought to regain control.

The Aether pulsed.

Dellen felt it like the tick of the clock in his brain, its second hand moving forward and stopping with the finality of a closing tomb. It ticked again. Each quiet tick louder than the hands of a clocktower.

Body still as stone, Dellen pushed and pulled, trying to exert influence over the clock in his mind.

It ticked, and it ticked again.

Locked in stasis, Dellen felt the smallest measure of control. He still hadn’t taken a breath, but his eyes had moved the smallest fraction.

Aether pulsed up his arm. It swarmed through his forged palm, pulsing to the tips of his fingers, flowing to his elbow and up to his shoulder. It hit the resistance of his flesh and surged back down.

The Aether returned to his hand before moving upstream and pushing into flesh.

Down to his hand.

Up to his shoulder.

Down to his hand.

Aether burst through the flesh barrier and across his back to his left shoulder.

In his flesh, the Aether was slow, sluggish; upon breaking through to his forged left shoulder, it moved with the inevitability of an avalanche. It fell down his arm and drew more power from the column.

Power surged into him.

Dellen’s fingers twitched on the column.

There was no doubt in his mind, this was Chronometric Aether; he was in the space between seconds. Time was at all but a standstill.

With the clock still dominating his thoughts, Dellen’s mind fled to his time with the Aetheric Cultivators, taming the Electrical Aether, sinking it into him, forging his arms.

Power surged through him.

Dellen pulled on more, and it came.

The clock in his mind froze mid-tick.

He still hadn’t taken a breath.

The copper around his fingers lit up, glowing from within.

Dellen pulled, and the copper followed.

A mist of metal flowed into his arm. He could feel the copper run into his body, coating him, slick, like a film of oil. It spread over his fingers, over his knuckles, over his palms, past his elbows, to his shoulders.

The flesh that had stopped the Chronometric Aether surrendered before the copper.

Copper steam seared into him.

The boundary between the Copper, the Aether, and Dellen’s body blurred. Metal formed ropes over his bones. The clock in his mind burst into flame. Copper burrowed across his back, wrapped across the top of his spine. It fused with his flesh, creating an amalgamation of living tissue and metal.

The heat was intense, bordering on unbearable.

A scream was born and died in his mind.

Dellen pushed at the copper in his body, encouraging it to delve into his vertebrae. Liquid fire spread up his neck.

Copper burst through to his left arm.

The pain abated; threads of copper wove over his iron-laced humerus, flickered across to his elbow, and continued to his fingers. Aether balanced from hand to hand, a circuit of power in his mind.

Aether pulsed from the column into his body and shot up his neck, tracing a line of fire to his eye.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The searing pain in his back subsided.

Chronometric Aether and copper steam flowed through him.

Dellen’s Spark Core spun.

A vortex of copper formed, drawing all of the free metal in his body down to one place. The metallic elements in his body created new plating, enlarging and strengthening his Spark Core.

His Spark Core pulsed with energy, growing in intensity as it assimilated the copper into its very structure. The once dull core took on a warm, reddish hue as the copper melded with its existing structure.

Leftover copper coated his heart and lungs, hardening them without hurting them.

The clock in his mind ticked again. Flames died down, revealing burnished metal.

Dellen’s Spark Core spun.

Chronometric Aether pulsed into his body. A fresh wave of copper followed. It swirled in his body, gathered around his Spark Core, and flowed into the flesh on the right side of his chest. Awareness grew in Dellen’s mind; there was darksilver and stoneglass within a cradle of whisper steel and moonstone.

Darksilver repelled the copper, pushing it to the surface of Dellen’s chest. Gaseous metal integrated into his ribs, forging them into something stronger; the copper continued its journey out, threading through the skin of his chest.

Pain abated. The flow of Aether into his body stilled.

Dellen took an involuntary step back.

A sensation of strength and vigor flowed through him.

The Chronometric Aether in him ebbed to an almost unnoticeable flow.

Dellen called out to Tristan. “Perhaps you’re right; let’s return to the surface.”

The only answer was an oppressive silence.

Dellen turned.

Tristan was gone.

He was alone on the support.

He stared at the empty space. His eyes crept along the support, peaking at the chasm. The vast, hungry, darkness.

Dellen spun in a slow circle, looking around for anything to relieve the unrelenting black. In the far distance was a hint of light, but around Dellen, there was nothing but the glow from his lamps and the sound of the cog spinning above.

Feeling strong and weak, Dellen sank onto the support, trying to think of anything he could do apart from jumping off the edge.

Dellen stared.

The darkness above him felt oppressive.

He’d forged his body again, he felt stronger than ever, but it was ash in his mouth. He was trapped; there was no way for him to get back to the surface, no way for him to tell anyone what he’d discovered, and no way for him to escape the explosions.

Even if Gilgamesh somehow came looking for him, there were miles and miles of supports under the city; there was no reason to find him on this particular beam.

Dellen’s head fell.

Annoyance bubbled up within him.

He was not going to sit there and wait for the explosions.

He was partially aetherforged; there had to be a way he could use that.

Dellen looked at his surroundings and tried to imagine an avenue of escape.

With Kinematic Aether, he might try to follow supports that led somewhere useful and launch himself from one beam to another. With Pyro Aether, he might try to melt handholds in the metal and climb out. With Steam Aether… his imagination failed him, but he didn’t have those affinities. He had an affinity for Electrical Aether and Chronometric Aether.

Dellen looked at the axis; he’d just freed himself from it and wasn’t in a rush to push more Aether through his body. He flexed his upper back and felt the difference, steelskin from shoulder to shoulder.

Electrical Aether and Chronometric Aether, Dellen didn’t know the first thing about using Chronometric Aether, but Electrical Aether was something familiar. He knew there were myriad uses that he couldn’t remember, but there had to be something basic and useful.

He rubbed his knuckles against each other.

The Aether came more easily than ever, white sparks in the dark.

His thoughts circled, what good were electrical shocks, outside of combat? He looked at the lamps in his hands. He could power them when another would be stuck in the dark. That wouldn’t save him.

He could force electrical aether through solids and burn them. That wouldn’t save him. He could try to project Electrical Aether beyond his body to create a barrier, or maybe he could turn it inward to enhance his reflexes. Something about the barrier teased at his mind. A barrier wouldn’t help, but his mind circled back to it.

Dellen frowned; he didn’t need something that repelled attacks.

Repelled.

Dellen looked at the metal beneath him. Kinematic Aether would let him launch himself up like a flung projectile. Could he create a charge that would do the same? Could he fling himself up?

He looked around; the question was, fling himself to where?

Annoyance and fear drained from him. He could work with this. He had four days until the attack; he would reach the surface before then.

Dellen placed one hand just above the metal surface beneath him and pooled Electrical Aether in his palm.

A crackling white glow lit the space under his palm.

Aether arced from his hand into the metal.

A lightning bolt in miniature, it danced across the surface and sank in, repelling nothing.

Dellen tried again.

The darkness beneath his hand lit up, lightning arced.

Darkness lit, lightning arced.

Again and again, power leaped from his hand to the copper beneath. Again and again, it fizzled.

Aether left him and moved as it saw fit.

Dellen frowned; he needed to shape the Aether, he needed it to concentrate beneath his hand, he needed it to stay.

Arc after arc dissipated into the metal beneath him.

Hours passed. He took breaks when the constant flow of Aether grew too tiring for him to continue.

A lightning bolt bridged the gap between Dellen’s hand and the copper, and it stayed.

It was faint; then it grew brighter. The metal, now blackened from countless strikes, played host to a single, continuous line of Electrical Aether.

He focused his Aether on the small area of metal. Tiny sparks of electricity danced and crackled on the copper’s surface, gradually increasing in intensity. The air hummed, and an unfamiliar scent filled his nose.

A bluish-white light built over the metal’s surface.

The dancing sparks beneath his hand pushed up, spikes of lighting almost high enough to return to his palm.

A pressure built beneath his hand, physically pushing him up.

Dellen locked his shoulder and gritted his teeth in a fierce grin.

A blue-white bolt burst out of the metal, struck his chest, and blew him backward.

Dellen’s feet left the ground; for a moment, he flew, then came the crack of his body impacting metal, lower back, shoulders, and skull.

Pain bloomed in the back of his head.

A low groan crept from his lips.

His nose twitched, and a new smell pressed itself into his nostrils. Burnt fabric and singed steelskin.

His fingers examined the front of his coat. A jagged, scorched line ran across the fabric, edges singed and blackened. Made from previously fine material, it had gained a new rough, charred texture.

Dellen tried to undo his buttons, but the threads snapped instead.

Beneath his jacket, his shirt had a missing section of black ash over his skin. He brushed it away. Damaged steelskin met his eyes. It felt wrong. steelskin was supposed to look similar to regular human flesh; this looked mottled and old, with a localized fern-like burn.

He lay down on the copper and rested; his head and lower back were worse than his chest and shoulders. Eyes closed, he tried to plan; the mishap was proof of concept; he could launch himself into the air; now he just needed to find the right place to stand.