The Underground Lab
The blinding blue light slowly receded, retracting back into Azazel's skin like water soaking into a sponge.
The agonizing twisting of his body stopped.
Azazel stood in the open pod, steam rising from his shoulders.
He didn't look like a dying man anymore.
The red pigment of his skin was deeper, richer, and deep within his yellow eyes, a nebulous blue galaxy swirled.
The tribal runes that covered his body had settled, but they no longer looked like ink.
They looked like scars carved by cosmic fire, pulsing with a faint, rhythmic bioluminescence.
"Azazel?" Ernst asked, stepping closer but keeping one hand near the emergency dampener.
Azazel blinked, disoriented.
He lifted his hands, staring at the empty air.
"It's... crowded," Azazel whispered.
His voice had changed, it echoed slightly, as if he were speaking from two places at once.
"The air. It's not empty. It's full of... ripples."
"Ripples?" Ernst's mind raced.
He's seeing the spatial manifold.
The fabric of the dimension.
"Touch them," Ernst commanded.
"Don't just look. Interact."
Azazel reached out. To the scientists, he was pawing at thin air.
But to Azazel, he was grabbing the curtains of reality.
He dug his claws in and pulled.
SCREECH.
A sound like tearing metal filled the room.
The air split open, revealing a jagged tear in space.
Through the rift, they could see a night sky, a calm ocean, and the rotating beam of a distant lighthouse.
"A portal," Kerry gasped, adjusting his monocle.
"That's the St. James Lighthouse. Ten miles north."
"Stable wormholes," Ernst noted, scribbling furiously in his notebook.
"He doesn't need to decompose his body to teleport anymore. He can bridge two points in space. Azazel, this is incredible, but it's redundant. We need defense. Can you wrap those ripples around yourself?"
Azazel frowned, concentrating.
"But this is much slower"
He waved his hand, pulling the invisible threads of space around his body like a cloak.
He seemed to blur slightly, his form becoming hazy.
"Hold that," Ernst said.
He grabbed a heavy steel wrench from a workbench and hurled it at Azazel's face with full force.
"Master Ernst!" Kerry shouted.
Azazel didn't flinch. He didn't even blink.
The wrench flew through the air, struck Azazel's forehead... and passed straight through him.
It clattered to the floor behind him.
Ernst grinned, a maniacal, satisfied smile.
"Intangibility. You're shifting your mass into a pocket dimension while projecting your image here. It's the ultimate defense."
To be sure, Ernst grabbed a luger from a nearby guard and fired three shots.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The bullets passed through Azazel's chest, leaving no wounds, only ripples in the air where they exited.
Azazel looked down at his chest, then at Ernst, a terrifying grin spreading across his face.
"I am... a ghost."
"You are better than a ghost," Ernst corrected.
"You are a walking dimensional anomaly. Now, try the offensive application. Focus the space into a line. A cutting edge."
Azazel extended his hand.
The air distorted around his fingers, forming a translucent, vibrating blade of distorted space.
He slashed at a heavy steel workbench.
SHING.
The solid steel table split in two, the cut so clean it looked like it had been laser-machined.
"The Dimensional Blade," Ernst nodded.
"It ignores durability. It cuts the coordinates, not the material. But be careful, I can see you're exhausted."
Azazel panted, the blue light in his eyes dimming.
"It... takes a toll."
"We will train," Ernst promised.
"But for now, we leave. Kerry, pack the equipment."
"Pack it, sir?" Kerry looked at the tons of heavy machinery.
"We don't have the cargo ships."
"We don't need ships," Ernst gestured to Azazel.
"Azazel, open a Pocket Dimension. Just a storage locker in the void. Dump everything in."
It took ten minutes. Azazel opened a rift to a personal sub-space, and the staff shoved the expensive centrifuges and reactors into the void.
When the room was empty, Ernst turned to Kerry.
"Set the charges," Ernst ordered.
"Sir?" Kerry hesitated.
"This facility cost millions."
"And our lives are priceless," Ernst said coldly.
"We just punched a hole in the fabric of reality. We rang a dinner bell for every mystic, god, and monster on this planet. We leave nothing behind. Burn it."
Kerry nodded solemnly.
"Understood."
Ernst was right. The energy spike had rippled across the ley lines of the Earth.
In the Himalayas:
The Ancient One stood on the balcony of Kamar-Taj, the freezing wind whipping her yellow robes.
She looked West, her eyes narrowing.
"Space stone energy," she murmured.
"But... crude. Chaotic."
"Shall I investigate, Sorcerer Supreme?" a disciple asked.
She paused, then shook her head.
"The timeline is shifting. Let us see where the ripples land first."
In Kun-Lun, The Hidden City:
Yu-Ti, the August Personage in Jade, sat on his throne. He felt the disturbance in the Chi.
"Someone is tearing the sky," he grumbled.
"The Western barbarians are playing with fire again."
In the North Sea (Somewhere unplottable):
Inside a castle hidden by heavy mist and enchantments, Hogwarts, an old man with a long silver beard paused in the middle of a hallway.
Albus Dumbledore adjusted his half-moon spectacles, looking out the window towards the south.
"Dark magic," he whispered.
"Or perhaps... science. Curioser and curioser."
In the Atlantic Ocean:
Deep beneath the waves, in the glittering throne room of Atlantis, Queen Atlanna gripped her trident.
The water pressure around her fluctuated.
"Surface dwellers," she hissed.
"They disturb the deep."
On Themyscira:
Hippolyta stood on the cliffs of Paradise Island.
She felt the vibration in the earth, a tremor that signaled the abuse of god-like power.
"The world of men is growing dangerous, sisters," she warned the Amazons behind her.
"We must be ready."
Back on the Island
Azazel grabbed Ernst and Kerry.
"Hold on," the demon grunted.
BAMF.
They vanished.
Seconds later, the underground base erupted.
The explosion collapsed the island's foundation, sinking the evidence beneath the churning waves of the Pacific.
Ernst had gotten what he wanted.
He had his assassin.
He had his power.
And the world had no idea who had pulled the trigger.
——
Authors Note:
I have analyzed the physics of 'Writer Motivation.'
It turns out, my typing speed is directly correlated to the number of shiny blue rocks (Power Stones) in my inventory.
200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
10 reviews = 1 bonus Chapter