Road to Eden

Alkatyenia and Golunda rested their heads on my shoulders, each one claiming a side. Our reunion had lasted for several days, to the point that we were running late to meet with the others of our former pantheon, but no one was in a rush to get moving. Unfortunately, that did little to stop the others, and they decided to bring the meeting to us. We only had a moment of warning as several powerful figures converged on our location, but it was more than enough time for the three of us to manifest our clothing and sit up.

Four people stepped out of the void and into the open area of our room, nothing similar about any of them except the level of power in their aura. One was a muscular, eight-foot-tall man with four arms and wearing a golden breastplate that stood out against his pale blue skin. Another one was tiny, only three feet tall, and sat on a plush cushion that was fixed to the back of a silver spider-like construct. The third looked like a young girl around the age of seven with six feathered wings on her back and a black cat with two tails in her arms. The last looked like an ancient man with heavy wrinkles and long gray hair and beard that was neatly tied with silver cords, though he was the youngest of all of those present.

"You three have had your fun for long enough," Zahe, the diminutive man, said.

Golunda stood up and walked towards the muscular man, Joyano, but her tail traced Zahe's chin as she teased, "I would have visited you if you would ever pull your attention away from your toys."

"Succubus," he grumbled, swatting her tail away.

She only gave a bell-like giggle and snuggled into Joyano's embrace with a smirk. The two of them were always at odds since their personalities clashed. Golunda was outgoing and free-loving while Zahe isolated himself to work on his projects and rarely interacted with anyone when he did leave his workshop. Both thought the other one was wasting their abilities and talents, but in very different ways.

"We need to focus on the matter at hand," Suwae said as she stroked the fur of the cat in her arms.

"I will have to agree," Istar, the eldest looking one of our group, said.

"Well, my reasons for coming here have all been consolidated to one, Entode, but what was worth drawing you and the craftsman into this battle?" I asked.

"My vision has become clouded, and I cannot see beyond the true beginning of this war," Istar answered.

No one spoke as the weight of his words sunk in. Istar was known as the number one expert of Time throughout the Expanding Firmament. For him to lose his ability to peer into the future, something dangerous was approaching that was cloaking itself with this war. The last time that his vision had been blocked, it had hidden the death of Kasunto, the founder of our original pantheon, so it was very disconcerting, since his power had only grown in the millions of years since that fateful day.

"It seems that we will all have the chance for revenge. Tienovy Pantheon must have mobilized once again," Alkatyenia sighed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another week had passed, and we were packing up to go check up on the bunkers and Arkadia, while seeing just how far the wire would stretch. Madi was no longer hiding from Echo or I, but she refused to leave the valley. Echo volunteered to stay behind and, although Katye wanted to as well, I insisted that she come along, both to make sure she was not doing any treasure hunting while I was gone and to get her help on the journey. I may have made markers to lead the way, but that did not mean I had picked an easy route. We would have to cross a ravine that had probably been a deep river or lake and a mountain chain.

Things had not changed too much for me, but for Katye and Raven, a good portion of their day was dedicated to Madi. Raven could speak more Trigedasleng than I could, so she would have Madi help her in the garden and then they would play board games with Katye translating when needed. She would spend the evenings in Katye's and Echo's house and had her own room on the side. Both of them were a little sad to leave Madi behind, but no one was going to force her to come along.

While I finished loading up the last of the spools of wire onto the back of the truck, Katye and Raven said goodbye to Madi. Raven walked over after that while Katye gave Echo a long, yet tame kiss. It was rare to see a tender moment between them and, while it was nice to see that they were happy together, there was always a strange pang of jealousy when I did. I had no room to talk with how affectionate Raven and I were, but I did not really know where the feeling came from.

Raven and I got into the front of the truck and Katye joined us after another minute. I turned on the truck and drove off, down our little road out of Eden. The road opened to the west side of the valley, so we had to drive around the northern side before we broke away from the green and headed towards the sandy cliffs.

Most of the drive was pleasant, but Katye and I had to get out several times to handle certain obstacles. To cross over the mountains, Katye made a road for the rover to drive on while I transformed and flew up to the point that was the lowest near my marker then started carving a pass. By the time that Katye had connected her road up to where I was working, I had already dug around a hundred feet straight down and three hundred across. The ravine was far easier to handle since I flew to the other side and Katye and I formed a large stone bridge from both ends.

Thanks to the marked route and straight path, more or less, we were able to near Arkadia as the rover batteries grew low. It was still a little before sunset, so Raven set up the truck to recharge while I started making camp and Katye began cooking our ration packs. We had set up around the first pillar that I had created, and my little, half-dome was still present nearby. Instead of stopping with the first structure that could easily house all three of us, I continued to create simple buildings that could easily house six people if they were using hammocks similar to what we had brought with us while Katye made dinner.

"So, what's with all of the extra buildings?" Katye asked as we all sat down together to eat.

"At some point, people will have to follow our trail to get to Eden, so I thought I should get started making places for them to stay. They won't have rovers to take everyone, so it will take over a week to cross the distance and who knows... Maybe one day, this could turn into a village or even a city," I replied with a light smile.

Katye chuckled softly while Raven kissed my cheek and said, "It's good to see you so relaxed and happy."

I shrugged, "I always loved building things and even wanted to be an architect in my past life, but the schooling was too much for me, especially after I got a job in a firm. It ended up being a dead-end, secretary job, but I did get to go to different sites occasionally and watch skyscrapers get built. Now, I have the chance to make my own, and any other crazy ideas that I might have."

"Oh, I can already see a rash of crazy structures popping up all over the valley," Katye retorted with a smirk.

"Come on, think about it... With our powers, we could literally build a house on a cliff face or standing over the river."

"You played a lot of those survival, sandbox games, didn't you?"

"Half a dozen or so," I agreed with a chuckle. "You should ask Echo about the clinic I made in Troit. Ha, I topped the chimneys with stone dragonheads, so that the smoke came out of their mouths."

"Watch her when she starts building your house, Raven, or she is bound to make something strange," Katye chuckled while shaking her head.

"Do you think I can stop her?" Raven retorted with a smirk.

I rolled my eyes at their antics of teasing me. After we finished our meal, Raven and I retired to one of the buildings while Katye took another. Raven was the only one that really needed to sleep, so I made a couple of anchor points on the wall and strung up a hammock for her. We chatted for a little bit before she fell asleep, so I began my usual nightly routine of training.

In Ishu's former life, people naturally used unattributed mana while animals typically had one or two elements that they could wield. They could alter it and create any element, but, as he put it, I was more like a beast that could imitate humanoid magic. I did my best to not let that comment get to me, but unattributed mana had become my sole focus. He gave me a simple sounding exercise, but since I had made little progress over the past week, it was much harder than I would have liked.

I sat on the ground in the middle of the building with my hands resting in my lap, palms up. Channeling my mana into my hands, I slowly pushed that energy out of my body which caused a dark gray glow to rise from my palms. I gathered all of the mana into a wispy ball that was about the size of a golf ball and kept feeding it more energy.

He gave me a list of rankings and what the size of their mana ball would be. Since he was on the Grand Master level when he died, I had expected to be in the mid-ranks at least, but I was at the bottom of the barrel, on the edge between the Acolyte and Disciple rank. It was not due to a lack of mana, but rather because an element would unerringly corrupt my attempt.

As I approached the size of a tennis ball, the mana ball ignited into red flames and I sighed as I released the energy, letting the fire die away in moments. This was not the first time that it had happened, and certainly would not be the last, but I knew that I needed to keep practicing. Just like Katye's Superspeed, there were other applications for unattributed mana that could reinforce and enhance my body and senses, so it was not something that I would be able to ignore.

I trained for a few hours before my patience ran out and I switched to practicing my Domains. With Katye close by, and often training her own, she added some pressure and difficulty for using them. She was awake, and training, so she sensed my Domains pressing against hers. Her mana flared and she was able to push back my Earth Domain, but she could not do the same with my Wind Domain.

Of course, now that the challenge had been made, I had to respond. I released my Wind Domain completely and focused only on my Earth Domain, pushing back against hers. We moved the line between us a few times before she abandoned holding mine back except for a foot around her and used that extra 'strength' to stab her Domain through my own like a spear. Since she could change the shape of hers, I could too. I shrunk what was on the opposite side of her and used that spare bit of energy to build a 'wall' to block her attack while trying to pinch off her connection to the head of her spear. I succeeded with my plan to stop her, but that did not mean she was done. She kept attempting to strike at me while I blocked her attacks for another hour, but both of us were low on mana, so we ended up meditating for what was left of the night.

The next morning, we had breakfast while the rover charged up then headed for Arkadia. Katye radioed the structure while Raven and I got out of the rover. I used my power to carry over one of the spools of wire as Raven walked over to the ground relay and sat down, pulling out her laptop. The box that protected the relay was made out of my metal, so it was easy to sense the underground container. After moving away the ash and sand, I opened the box and connected the spool to the wire that was sticking out of the relay. Raven handed me a wire that connected to her computer, and I connected it to the other end of the spool.

Raven switched on her laptop and started typing away once it loaded. Katye walked over a few minutes later and gave us a nod. Raven double hit the 'enter' button and her window was taken over by a black screen. It took a minute or two, but the feed changed, and we were looking at Bellamy and Sinclair in the command center.

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes," Raven remarked with a light chuckle.

"It's good to see you too, Reyes," Sinclair replied, smiling.

"How are things in there?" Katye asked.

"Most of the repairs are complete; food and water production are at expected levels, so things are going well," he replied. "Did you find your valley?"

"We did. It's about two hundred miles to the south, southeast, but it's large enough for everyone once the radiation levels come down enough for you guys to come out," Katye answered.

Bellamy and Sinclair both looked relieved, which was understandable. Even if Arkadia could continue to support them once they were able to leave, the region surrounding the former space station was dead and uninviting. People needed Life around them, even Skaikru who only had a few months of green before the world was destroyed.

"Do you have any projection on how long it will take to link us to the bunkers? It would do a lot to boost morale around here if people could speak to the others," Sinclair asked.

"We can create about two miles of wire a day and have around twenty-four miles with us right now. It won't reach all the way to Mount Weather, but when we come back next month, we'll be able to connect you to the Mountain and the Polis bunker the month after that," Katye replied.

"That's good news."

Katye nodded her head and asked, "Is there anything that you need us to do?"

"We'll upload a few status reports to your computer that should help ease concerns about us in the other bunkers, but otherwise, we are fine for now," Sinclair replied.

"Good, stay that way," Katye said with a smile.

"I've got the files," Raven announced.

"We'll come this evening and upload the reports from Mount Weather and Polis," Katye added.

"Thank you. Be safe out there," Sinclair said.

"You too," Katye replied before the view screen shut off.

"So, how does riding in the back with the wire sound?" I asked.

"I'll do it. It's not a lot of practice, but I'm still lagging behind you quite a bit, so I'll take what I can get," Katye offered.

"Sounds good to me."

Raven packed up her laptop while Katye created a thick, stone rod then wrapped the end of the wire that was still connected to the ground relay around it a few times. She used her mana to float the spool back over to the rover and hooked it up to a horizontal rod so that it would be able to spin as we drove. Raven and I got in the front of the truck, with me in the driver's seat, and Katye hopped onto the bed of the truck. We had to stop every other mile for Katye to switch out the spools of wires, but once we ran out and marked the location, she moved inside the cab.

When we reached Mount Weather, Raven connected her laptop to the ground relay just like we had at Arkadia. We spoke with Kane, Abby, Indra, and Roan for a bit where they told us that they had a lot of success using my metal to make containers that held back the radiation which was good news. They uploaded their status reports, including their findings with the radiation properties of my metal, and a message for Clarke from Abby. We repeated the process at the Second Dawn Bunker, transferring the files while we talked, then turned around and headed back to Mount Weather and Arkadia. By the time that we made it back to the camp that I had created the day before, it was already getting dark. It had been a long day, but a good one since it looked like the bunkers would be fine.

A/N: If you would like to support me and get early access to the story, join my P@t reon - Azazii6181?fan_landing=true.