From Moving Crates to Killing Gods-Chapter 102: Younger Generation

The dust cloud was still settling when everyone started talking at once.

"How." Finn said, the single word leaving his mouth like a statement rather than a question. He was staring at the building with the expression of someone who had just watched a magic trick performed by a man with no hands.

"He switched it." Kira answered, though her voice carried the tone of someone explaining something she did not fully believe herself. "He switched an entire building."

"From where?" Finn asked while still staring at the silver mass.

"The ruins." I said. "Halfway between here and there."

Finn looked toward the direction of the ruins, then back at the building, then again, his brain clearly doing the distance calculation and not enjoying the result. His head went back and forth three more times before he stopped, looking slightly dizzy.

"But you were not at the ruins." He said slowly. "You were here."

"I only need to feel the building." I replied calmly. "Not touch it."

That answer landed in silence for several seconds. Coco broke it first. He stood up from the pool of dark water and began walking around the building in a slow circle, examining it the way someone studies an object they have decided is either extremely impressive or deeply suspicious. His orange hair caught the ambient light as he rounded the far corner and returned.

"So you just grabbed it from far away." He said while tilting his head slightly. "Switching dirt."

"Yes." I said while moving my hand from the surface of the building and walking away from it.

Coco nodded slowly. "Okay." His expression was the one of a person suspicious that all of this was a dream.

Kira had not moved from her position beside the vine. She watched me with the particular expression she got whenever she was updating her understanding of something she thought she had already figured out. It was the same look she’d worn when she discovered that Phinyx’s energy vibes worked better if you asked nicely for them.

"But before..." She continued. "When you used Switch you always had to be close to what you were moving."

"I had to see it back then." I replied. "But thanks to Sense I only need to feel it now."

"And your new range is?" Kira asked.

I did not have a precise answer, so I did not give one.

"Its a decent range... really decent."

"That is not a measurement." Kira said flatly.

"I’m aware."

Kira stared at me. Behind her, Coll was grinning broadly now, the warm kind of grin that suggested he had just decided this was the best thing he had seen all week.

"I always wondered what a spatial ability looked like when someone actually pushed it to the limit." He said pleasantly. "Now I know."

"It looks like architecture appearing from the sky." Kira said flatly.

As we were talking, the building started tilting to the side. Sand was probably not the ideal surface for this kind of building.

Then it fell sideways, another dust cloud formed around us.

"It fell!" Coco added helpfully.

"It still counts." Coll replied.

Jim had not said anything. He stood at a short distance from the group facing the building, his glasses now straight. His expression was unreadable in the same careful way Damian’s expressions were unreadable. He remained there another moment, then without speaking or looking at anyone lifted from the ground and rose back to his scouting altitude.

Coll watched him leave, then looked at me with quiet amusement. "He’s processing."

"Processing what."

"The fact that you just did something that probably should not be possible." Coll said.

Finn exhaled slowly, scratched the back of his neck, and turned toward the building with the focused look of someone who had decided understanding the phenomenon was less important than using it.

"There is enough silver here for the first corridor already." Finn said while crouching beside the structure. "Maybe even more." He placed one hand against the surface and felt the material through his ability. "Maybe..."

"You’ll have enough extra silver to add the artistic details you usually add." I said jokingly.

Though, he did.

The corridor grew faster than I expected. Finn moved through the silver with the confidence of someone who had built multiple outposts under pressure and learned from every one of them. The metal responded to his ability, sliding and locking into sections he was connecting and solid against the wasteland ground.

Kira kept pace ahead of him while her vines threaded quietly through the soil, leaving the corridor channel clear.

Phinyx stood near the work line and spoke occasionally in a low, unhurried voice, and the air around camp carried something that made us feel more energetic.

At one point Coco walked past him, paused, and said "I feel like I could run to the Spire and back."

"Don’t." Phinyx said mildly. "That would be tiring."

"I feel like I won’t get tired."

"You would also probably get eaten by a Corruptor before."

Watching that exchange, I reflected on the fact that we were the seven oldest people from Argent. If this was how we behaved, I was not sure the younger generations had much hope.

Coll made repeated trips to the lake, returning each time with the bucket Finn had shaped filled to the brim.

I stood at the edge of camp and watched everything happen with Wip back on my head and my arms entirely unoccupied. I thought about sitting down and watching them work. Four seconds of consideration was enough to make me feel guilty.

The cluster of Corruptors was still ahead.

I had flown over that section during the exile, gliding beside Kira, and I remembered thinking the movement below us had looked wrong. Too many Corruptors in one place.

I told Wip to stay with Kira, she responded with three pointed wips before transferring herself from my head to Kira’s shoulder with an air of dignified protest. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

I then started walking toward the cluster. I extended Sense outward gradually, reaching forward in careful increments as the wasteland opened around me.

There were twenty Corruptors at minimum, moving around a central point, as if trying to not disturb something that was there.

Then I felt one Corruptor that was different.

Larger, heavier, less defined. The others moved around it.

I had felt a similar presence before.

In the lab.

The liquid Corruptor that used to be Eric’s wife.

Another Acolyte.

And this one was not trapped inside a bunker.