Mod Superhero

Chapter 7.31 - Clara 4

Arsenal moved in sync with Athena and Lock, the three of them slipping through the Vault's arteries like ghosts. Their nanite suits cloaked their outline, their movement, and even Arsenal's heat signature.

The only thing Arsenal couldn't silence was her own pulse.

Even after years of fighting and meditation, the Vault pressed down on her. Its walls felt thick, heavy with centuries of bindings and oppression—much thicker than even the mountain around them. It felt like they were buried underground—

Or like they'd been swallowed.

The corridor breathed around them like a living thing. The walls sweated condensation, runes flickering like nerves firing just beneath the surface. Every junction groaned with pressure. Valves sighed like lungs too tired to keep pace. She knew she was running through a demiplane of reinforced stone, but the sensation clung to her all the same. The Vault had been built up layer by layer until it mimicked a body—arteries, veins, organs, all stitched together to suppress the things locked inside. Moving through it like this, cloaked and silent, Arsenal couldn't shake the thought that she was trespassing in something's chest cavity.

They slipped past worker-mages crouched at intersections, patching runes with trembling chalk and whispering stabilizers under their breath. Others hauled crystalline batteries on carts, sweat running down their faces as the loads lit up with every jolt. None of them looked up. They were too focused on keeping the Vault stitched together.

A deep rumble passed through the Vault, like an old ship groaning in a storm.

Arsenal swallowed dryly. She hoped Mod knew what he was doing.

If the Mod pushed too hard, if the mages faltered... Well, the truth was that no one knew what would happen. All they had were theories: The Vault might crack open, destroying the mountain and hurling everyone violently across the landscape, or maybe it would implode, killing everyone instantly. Or, TINA's personal theory, that the Vault would collapse, trapping everyone in an inescapable pocket dimension. Forever.

Arsenal shuddered inside her suit.

Mod wouldn't let that happen. Neither would TINA, or her dad.

Arsenal focused on the task at hand, and on keeping up with her teammates. Lock and Athena barreled forward, the former with tiger-like agility and the latter using her barriers like springboards.

Directions lit up in Arsenal's HUD, followed by Mod's voice.

"I'm making a bridge at the next junction. Look for a portal."

In the second it took Arsenal's team to cross the length of the hallway, a swirling gray portal opened in the wall, right where Mod said it would. Through UV, Arsenal could just make out the next hallway beyond—

Just before her, Lock, and Athena leapt through.

At its core, the Vault was like any other demiplane—locked so that only certain mages could go in and out, and so that they could only access certain wings. Normally, this was as simple as a passphrase or specifying which people could enter, but the Vault was so complex that it required a different solution. Each mage carried a keystone, which served both as a key to unlock doors and as a guidance system to get them to where they needed to go.

Arsenal's team could've stolen keystones and recoded them, but that would've taken too long. It was only a matter of time before the Vault's guards found them, and only a little longer until the others called for outside backup.

That's where Mod came in. He was their keystone.

He was reaching deep into the Vault, his nanite web tracing passages and charting a path through the maze. Arsenal still didn't quite understand it, but between his nanites and with insights he'd gained from the Mirror of Borrowed Fates, somehow Mod was charting a path through the Vault—