The Aethelgard jet didn't fly; it slipped through the dimensions like a needle through silk. Inside the cabin, the atmosphere was a bizarre mix of high-stakes corporate negotiation and a first date.
"The Bio-Battery facility is hidden beneath the Karakoram Range," Lin Yue explained, her fingers dancing across a holographic map.
"The Restorationists are using the natural tectonic pressure of the mountains to mask the energy siphoned from the Bio-Humans. It's clever. It looks like a standard geothermal power plant on every satellite scan."
[DAO MESSAGE: HOST, I HAVE ACCESSED THE FACILITY'S COMM-LINKS. IT SEEMS THE 'RESTORATIONISTS' ARE HAVING AN INTERNAL DISPUTE. HALF OF THEM WANT TO USE THE ENERGY TO SUMMON AN ANCIENT DEITY, AND THE OTHER HALF WANT TO USE IT TO LOWER THEIR AIR CONDITIONING BILLS. EVIL HAS REALLY GONE DOWNHILL.]
Suddenly, the cabin door to the cockpit slid open. The Recruiter, whose name was Instructor Yan, stepped out with a woman who looked like she was carved from a single block of mountain ice.
"Li Ren," Yan said, gesturing to the newcomer.
"This is Bai Ling. She is the top-ranked 'Reality-Bender' at Aethelgard and the daughter of the Council of Overseers. She will be your proctor for the 'Field Exam'."
Bai Ling didn't look at me; she looked through me. Her eyes were a piercing, crystalline blue that seemed to freeze the very air she exhaled.
"So this is the 'Vibrationist'?" Bai Ling's voice was like glass shattering. She stepped into my personal space, her gaze lingering a second too long on my face. "He lacks the discipline of a true Bender. He looks like he spends more time at a buffet than in a meditation chamber."
Lin Yue's smile didn't reach her eyes. She stood up, her iridiscence-silk coat flaring aggressively. "He's a specialist, Miss Bai. And as his COO and primary investor, I suggest you keep your 'meditation' critiques to yourself. We're here for a rescue, not a yoga retreat."
Bai Ling tilted her head, a cold, competitive smirk playing on her lips. "Investor? How quaint. At Aethelgard, we don't buy power. We are power. Ren, if you survive the facility, perhaps I'll show you what a real 'S-Class' connection feels like. You're far too interesting to be wasted on a corporate manager."
The temperature in the cabin dropped by fifteen degrees. Lin Yue's hand gripped her tablet so hard the glass groaned. I sat between them, feeling like a bridge support caught between two tectonic plates.
"Can we focus on the Bio-Humans?" I asked weakly. "I'm pretty sure the villains are currently winning."
Deep beneath the mountains, the "Battery" was starting to smoke.
Zhou Min was suspended in a vat of glowing amber fluid, hundreds of cables plugged into his spine. But the Restorationists had made a fatal error: they had overcharged him. By trying to siphon his "Golden Energy," they had accidentally Jump-Started his ancient core.
Inside the vat, Zhou's eyes snapped open. They weren't just gold anymore; they were a blinding, incandescent white.
"Data... scrub..." he rasped, the words echoing through the lab's speakers.
"Contribution... points... EXPIRED."
With a roar that shattered every glass tube in the facility, Zhou Min didn't just wake up; he underwent a System Reboot. He didn't know where he was or who he was, but he knew he was angry, and he knew he really, really hated people in lab coats.
The Aethelgard jet breached the facility's cloaking field just as the mountain started to shake.
"Field Exam begins now!" Bai Ling shouted, leaping out of the jet's cargo bay without a parachute, her body encased in a shroud of frozen mist.
"Ren, if she touches you, you're fired!" Lin Yue yelled, grabbing a tactical "Gravity-Glove" from the jet's armory and jumping after her.
I sighed, adjusted my backpack, and stepped out into the thin, freezing air.
[DAO MESSAGE: HOST, WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO TRIGGER THE 'SURE-FOOTED' PROTOCOL OR SHOULD WE JUST WING IT?]
Just make sure I don't land on a Bio-Human, System. I'm wearing my good sneakers.
As I plummeted toward the smoking entrance of the base, I saw a sea of grey-skinned Bio-Humans pouring out of the wreckage, led by a glowing, half-naked, and very confused Zhou Min. The "Restorationists" were running for their lives, being chased by the very batteries they had tried to use.
The "Entrance Exam" had officially become a three-way war between an icy prodigy, a jealous CEO, and a data-clerk who had finally found his "Delete" key.