Path to the Apocalypse

Chris's head peeked out of a portal, looking around. “So… does anyone have any idea what the eleventh level is supposed to look like? Cause I think I'm lost.”

“I- think you might just have to wander around and see what you find.” Beth replied, glancing through the portal. The tunnel was larger than the tunnels on the lower levels, and there was a lot more vegetation, but she didn't know enough about the upper levels to tell exactly where they were. She just hoped they were beyond the tenth.

“Damn.” Chris sighed. He still wasn't a hundred percent from the blow from the doppelganger, but he was good enough that he didn't have a good reason not to go right now. “Alright, come on Alex, let's go.” He waved for him to follow as he stepped through the portal, closing it behind them. “Do you have any good scouting abilities? I usually send rats to scout ahead, but I'm not sure how well they'd do on this level.”

“I have vision enhancement, but that isn't much use in the Maze…” Alex muttered. “I can go almost perfectly undetectable and search ahead myself?”

Chris clicked his tongue. “I have got to pick up something for that. I mean, I have Sidulpek's shadow smoke stuff, but it's only really stealthy in the dark, and the tunnels keep getting brighter as we go up. Though keeping it up would drain my potential energy…” In general, the amount of times someone could use their ability per day was equal to the square of their ability power, so at thirteen point four, Chris only had about a hundred and eighty charges a day, which translated to about a hundred and eighty minutes of persistent effects. Assuming he'd need two abilities to completely conceal himself, that'd mean he could only keep it up for about an hour and a half per day. Good enough for a fight, but not sustainable for prowling through the Maze. “How long can you keep yours up?”

“I can cloak myself for about two hours, but I only have half an hour of invisibility.” Alex answered. “Creatures with invisibility are hard to find.”

Chris snorted. “I think that's kind of the point.” He paused. “Wait, you need to find creatures with invisibility abilities to strengthen yours?”

Alex nodded. “The ability needs to be at least somewhat similar, and the closer it is, the better. Otherwise a lot of the energy gets wasted.”

"Huh.” Chris cocked his head, then shook it. “Anyway, I don't think we should risk splitting up at the moment. Let's get a better idea of what we're dealing with first. Plus, my spatial sense should be good enough to keep us from being surprised. It's close to ten meters now.”

The two of them made their way down the tunnel, keeping an eye out for any signs of tribes or creatures in the area. Chris sent out a few rats to see how effective they'd be, but before they'd even made it out of the tunnel, one was attacked by a lizard. The increased vegetation and larger tunnels allowed the smaller creatures of the Maze to thrive here, meaning Chris's rats couldn't crawl around unnoticed anymore, so Chris sent them back to his space with a sigh.

“Wait, I've got something.” Chris announced a few minutes later, crouching down and pushing aside some vines to reveal a large footprint in a bed of moss. “I think… bear? Definitely not something you'd find below the ninth level in any case.” Larger creatures like bears were always equivalent to high-tiers simply due to their size. Add in physique and ability, and they could be truly terrifying opponents. “Should be a good test of the general level of power around here.”

Alex grimaced. “You want to fight a bear?”

“To see how strong it is, yes.” Chris nodded. “They're solitary and relatively straightforward opponents, so we shouldn't have to worry about being surprised and if it's too strong, it shouldn't be that hard to escape.” He paused. “Also, I don't think we have much choice.” He added, standing up, shifting into his combat form, and growing a rocky carapace as a growl rumbled through the tunnel, the hulking form of a cave bear lumbering into view as it turned a corner and spotted them.

“Shit!” Alex cursed, transforming into a combat form of his own, his skin beginning to glow a steely gray.

Chris threw up a double layered barrier as the bear swiped at them, wincing slightly as the swipe hit, and… thudded off without even breaking the first layer. His tail lashed out, glowing green as it pierced into the bear's hide, and the bear roared in pain, twisting and pulling Chris towards it as his tail got lodged inside! Before Chris could react, its jaws dug into his shoulder, stopped by his carapace but trapping him as the bear shook its head, throwing him around until the bear released and sent him flying into a wall! Meanwhile, Alex was darting around, sending a bunch of different attacks at the bear and putting more than a few holes in its hide, but nothing had gone deep enough to truly hurt it yet. The bear whirled on Alex, only for Chris to leap on its back, digging in his claws and pumping Dyrdek's ability into it, latching on as the bear struggled to throw him off, bashing him against the walls and even rolling on the ground, his carapace keeping him mostly safe as the bear slowly weakened. Finally, after a good four minutes of struggling, the bear finally collapsed from a combination of blood loss and the venom.

Chris groaned as he turned back to his human form and rolled off the bear. “Did you happen to see what its ability was?” Alex shook his head, panting from the exertion of avoiding getting crushed by the bear's attempts to dislodge Chris. Chris grunted. “Probably not combat related then. It was at about fourteen ability power equivalent, so taking into account the fact that big ass creatures are fucking hard to kill… probably fifteen to twenty on average for this area? That sounds doable. Though we may want to avoid any more bears.”

Alex snorted, then pointed at the bear. “Can I have that? For the form.”

Chris blinked. “Yes. Then help me get it into my space. I wouldn't mind a bear form myself.”

*

“Aw, you're so cute!” Beth cooed as Chris and Alex tried out their new bear forms, which, unfortunately, were not the large killing machines they were hoping for. Instead, they were bear cubs, as much like how Chris's healing made people younger to account for missing limbs, the transformation had made them younger to account for the fact that humans were far from bear sized.

Chris grimaced as he returned to human form, his space wrapping him in clothes as he did. “Damn. But at least it looks like we can grow into them, if we want to spend a few years as bears.”

“But we don't have a few years!” Alex complained.

Chris raised an eyebrow at him. “Sure we do. There's no way we're going to be fighting the surface races any time soon. We'll have plenty of time to become adult bears. I might even mutate the form a few times.”

“But- the City?” Alex retorted hesitantly.

Chris frowned. “Didn't we just go over this? Our personal power isn't going to make any difference in evacuating the City. That's all the space. And minions. Speaking of, how are Jo and Salvador doing on that?”

“We- actually need to talk to you about that.” Beth coughed. “Now that the surface races are purging the Maze, we aren't exactly sure what to do with your minions… if we just leave them there, they're definitely going to die, but where else are they supposed to go?”

Chris cocked his head. “Well, we could hide them in my space for a bit… That's where they're going to end up anyway if they die, so we might as well let them in before they become permanent residents. Otherwise… the City? We're going to need them there eventually, aren't we?”

Beth frowned. “That- would be a hard sell. My dad would go for it, but the other Generals aren't as trusting of your abilities, and letting people from the Maze run around the City would make them… uncomfortable.”

Chris sighed. “Yeah, that makes sense.” He paused. “We could probably hide them somewhere on Earth for a bit. They've got a lot of empty space over there.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “I don't think we should risk pissing them off while we're trying to negotiate for our survival.”

Chris clicked his tongue. “Damn. I have nowhere else to hide them, then.”

Beth grimaced, not thinking of anything either, until it suddenly hit her. “Wait, the inspection zones!” She exclaimed.

Chris blinked. “You think they'd let us use them?”

Beth shook her head. “We don't even have access to them right now. Without the teleporters, they're completely cut off. We've been trying to figure out if we can save the garrisons stationed in them, or if we have to just abandon them, but now with your new capability…”

“I can save them, leaving us with four empty caverns to store a bunch of minions.” Chris nodded, catching on to her line of reasoning. “As long as there aren't any doppelgangers or elves hiding with them… Let me get a minion set up here, then let's go see the Generals.” Chris decided to catch a few of the creatures already living on the level and dominate them before putting them back, since that seemed easier than trying to carve out a niche for his current minions. With the combination of his spatial sense and the newly discovered ability for his portals to pass through things, all he had to do was scoop them into his space and concentrate for a moment before dumping them back out. It was so easy, he ended up dominating a whole tunnel in just a few minutes.

Chris then stepped back into the space, opening a portal to the military camp, and… waiting. He wasn't allowed to appear in the City unless absolutely necessary, since if the surface races somehow managed to capture him, or more importantly Beth, then all their efforts would have been for nothing. So the military had set up a designated portal spot using one of his rats and had guards watching it at all times. He just had to open a small portal and wait for one of the Generals to arrive. As they did, he widened the portal slightly, just enough to show his and Beth's faces, since Alex had wandered off at some point. “Private Vincent, Private Klein.” Belinda nodded as she arrived. “Is something wrong?”

“First, the surface races are in the Maze, purging it to keep me from gathering energy.” Chris reported. “Secondly, I just figured out I can move my portals through walls, so we're on what we hope is the eleventh level and out of their range for now. Third, we want to use said ability to move portals through walls to rescue the people trapped in the inspection zones, which I will then use to save my minions from aforementioned purging. I just need some help actually finding them because it's not easy to tell where you are in the middle of a bunch of rock and stone.”

Belinda blinked. “The inspection zones were all created directly over the bases and the teleportation station. Go to the center of the bases, then straight up, and you should reach them easily.”

Chris nodded. “Got it. Can I just send whoever I find here?”

“That should be fine.” Belinda agreed.

Chris shrunk the portal, aiming it down and sending it flying towards the Vanguard base, since it was the closest, then flying straight up until he arrived in the inspection zone. Evacuating the inspection zone wasn't all that difficult. All he did was open a portal back to the military camp, and the soldiers rushed out, after a few moments of disbelief. Then Chris closed the portal, dropped a minion, and moved to the next inspection point, after sending his minions in the Maze a warning about the surface races, and telling them to move to the inspection point. He repeated the process three more times, dropping minions off at each inspection point.

“So… that's done.” Chris commented, turning to Beth. “Back to the eleventh?”

Beth frowned. “We've been working on saving those people for a week now. And you just did it.”

Chris scratched his head. “Should I not have?”

Beth sighed. “No, it's just- every now and then you do something that makes it uncomfortably clear how powerful you are. It's not a bad thing, it's just… it kinda makes me wonder what the rest of us are even doing here. You're just going to get stronger and we're- we're going to get left further and further behind.”

Chris grimaced. “I keep saying you don't need to be strong-”

Beth held up a hand, stopping him. “No, I know, I'm not saying we're useless. It just- it kind of bums me out that we can't fight beside you any more. I know fighting isn't everything, but it's what we were trained for! And now… we just can't. And then on Earth, we won't even have anything to fight! I just- ugh, I have no idea what I'm going to do with my life anymore. I always thought I'd be career military, moving up the ranks, possibly even taking over as Scout General when my dad retires, but now the Scouts aren't even going to be a thing anymore!”

“Didn't you also want to be a doctor or something?” Chris offered.

Beth glared at him. “Chris, just think about that for a moment.”

Chris frowned. “What's wrong with being a doctor? You can help people get bet- oh. Right. The space.” Chris coughed awkwardly. There wasn't much point in being a doctor when he could just heal everyone.

Beth rolled her eyes. “Yeah, the space.” She sighed. “I don't know, I'm sure I'll figure something out, but right now it feels like my entire future just got ripped out from under me. I just- I wish I could get stronger too.”

Chris nodded. He wouldn't mind having Beth, or really the entire squad, along either. But how was he supposed to bring them? They couldn't mutate without a core, and even if they could, they didn't have a spot with enough ambient energy to support it, which was why he hadn't already mutated Jello or any of his other slimes. Plus, it'd take a week, and at the end, they wouldn't even be human anymore. It wasn't like they could transform back and forth like him and Al- Chris's line of thought cut off as an idea hit him. “I- think there's something we can do. But Alex is going to hate it.”