Museum Core Chapter 28: The Long Road Home

“Do you really think we could have taken out that sabertooth with a rocket launcher?” Jaclyn asked.

“We could have probably killed it, but it’d have been a terrible idea. I mean, we couldn’t have gotten more than what, thirty meters from the tiger when we fired it, and at that point, we’d have been so close to a wall that backblast would have reflected straight into us,” Smith shrugged. “I’d have risked it for something important, like if the Dungeon were holding nuclear launch codes hostage, but not for exploration.”

Jaclyn grimaced, but decided to stop distracting the driver. Power steering had failed a few minutes ago, and while the car was still useable without it, it was now handling like a pig on wheels.

“Are you going to go back?” Norris wondered from the seat behind her. “It’s crazy dangerous, but I could literally see the difference between you going in and you coming out.

“Probably,” Jaclyn shrugged. “I’d be very careful, and stop before the …”

She was cut off by the gun on the roof thundering to life, followed by a massive monkey-beast thudding onto the ground next to them.

“Is it just me or is the jungle crazy now?” Smith asked.

“Yeah …” Jaclyn muttered. The convoy had made so much noise during its trip in anything that didn’t know that acting openly wouldn’t result in an attack by some high-rank titan had to be deaf. She just hoped that the new status quo wouldn’t fully sink in until they were well clear of this place. And that the ammo would last.

What they were facing so far was already plenty messy. And dangerous.

Bit by bit, they advanced, with Jaclyn pointing out a few hidden creatures, even taking a few down with her borrowed sidearm, and she was rapidly getting really nervous.

But they survived.

For five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes.

And that was the point when the jungle erupted with power and magic.

The road ahead was suddenly blocked by countless roots spearing through the air, interlocking, weaving between each other, creating a massive barrier they might be able to ram through, but she wouldn’t risk it. And evidently, neither would Smith, who immediately stepped on the breaks.

But the sudden appearance of the wall wasn’t the strangest thing to have happened in the last few seconds. At least unless Jaclyn had imagined someone shouting “Wall of Heavenly Foliage”.

Behind them all, she could hear the squeals of heavy cars coming to a sudden stop, but she was already getting out of her current vehicle. Now that it was unable to move, the inside of the car felt less like protection and more like a shackle, a restraint that would make dodging very difficult when shit hit the fan.

“Hello?” she called out. “Are you here to …”

Well, she’d wanted to demand an answer as to what was the big idea, but was cut off by another burst of gunfire. She glanced to the side, catching sight of a large lizard creature whose head and neck were currently dissolving from the inside. Good God, could that thing spit acid? Chances were, if it had lived, it would have been in a position to literally melt entire cars.

She instinctively sidestepped a falling monkey the size of a Great Dane, with spiky protrusions of bone covering its knuckles in a deadly biological knuckleduster that caused the asphalt to crack as its fist slammed into the ground.

Damn, these things were aggressive. But that aggression also made them stupid. Very stupid.

Dropping down on someone might work perfectly in a video game, but in the real world, it was more than a little difficult. Your target needed to not move, and even then, the precision required to land a solid, precise, hit was difficult. Much easier to just land behind the target and take the second needed to get a clean hit somewhere it would actually be effective.

But this particular enemy would never learn to avoid repeating this mistake. Her fist slammed into its throat with enough force to crush its windpipe and drive her knuckles so deep that she could feel them press up against the creature’s spine before it went flying while she stumbled.

Yeah, she really needed to adjust her stance to compensate for her new strength. After all, when she hit a monster with enough force to send a creature flying, that same force pushed back against her.

Either way, that thing wasn’t getting back up.

Jaclyn glanced down at her knuckles, they had a few drops of blood on them. Yeah, having the blood vanish after death had made the Dungeon creatures far more pleasant to fight.

A rustle ahead of her was the only warning she got before the rest of the monkey’s allies showed their ugly mugs.

Yet before they could reach her, wooden spikes shot from the canopy and the ground like the jaws of a titanic creature closing on the beasts.

Holy shit. Holy. Shit!

She just hoped that it was a person doing that, not a monster.

Because that time, she’d definitely heard the name of the ability being called out.

“Jaws of the Jungle!”

The voice sounded oddly young. Not to mention that very few self-respecting adults would be announcing their attacks or spells like that. Too young for someone that powerful, she felt. Late teens, early twenties at the most. Certainly young enough that she was seriously worried about them doing something reckless.

As any first responder who was responsible for the largest volume of ridiculous calls, it would be that particular age group. Of course, a lot of those calls also ended up proving the idea that drunk people were seemingly indestructible.

As the saying went “If you’re going to be dumb, you’d better be tough”.

The point was that the thought of a kid, or basically still a kid, having superpowers sent cold shivers down her spine.

“Hello? What do you want?” Jaclyn called out. And where was this kid?

She looked around both to keep an eye on potential monsters, and try to find the person messing with the trees.

As she glanced back towards the convoy, she saw several soldiers getting out of the cars, but she waved at them to get back in. They could use their guns without exposing themselves, and they lacked her speed, senses, and reflexes.

But where was that damn forest mage?

There was a loud thud from the direction of the barrier, causing her head to snap in that direction, where she saw a young man rising out of the classic three-point landing, slightly wobbly, assisted by several vines hidden underneath his clothing.  She’d have missed those, had she not improved her senses, she realized.

A sword made from wood polished to the point where it practically glowed leaped up from the ground straight into his hand, and from there, he sheathed it on his back.

It looked impressive, but Jaclyn could tell how much of it was guided by the vines. In fact, the sword had initially missed the sheat of vines but the vines on the young man’s back had shifted to hold it. And, well, for the sword to have wound up on the ground, he had to have dropped it, didn’t he?

“What are you doing in my jungle?” he asked, speaking louder than was normal for a conversation but still too quietly for anyone except her and maybe Gula to overhear.

Also, his jungle?

“We came here to rescue some civilians who sent up smoke signals,” she called back, making sure to raise her voice enough for everyone to hear. “What about you, what are you doing?”

Behind her, she could hear another series of car doors opening, and the footfalls of people wearing combat boots approach. A glance backwards showed that Major Lowe was advancing, with six other soldiers walking beside him. A guard detail, clearly.

“Me? I live here now,” the young man said with an exaggerated shrug. “This is my home, my kingdom.”

Oh really?

Jaclyn sighed and decided to take a little time to think of an appropriate response. Major Lowe … didn’t.

“‘This’ is London, and it doesn’t belong to you. Now, remove those vines or there will be consequences.”

“You do realize that I’m a cultivator, jackboot?” the young man straightened further, trying to make himself look bigger, though the effect didn’t exactly work.

“And I’m an officer of the British Army,” Lowe countered. “Do you really think your magic can …”

Jaclyn took that as her cue to step in, taking position between the pair, waving at Lowe to move back. Thankfully, he really did shut up.

“So, this is your jungle, then? How are you controlling it? Does the System work for you, or did you learn magic?”

He’d already said he was a cultivator, but when people explained stuff, correcting “misunderstandings”, they tended to share a little extra information.

“Nah, I’m a cultivator all the way,” he grinned broadly, jamming a thumb against his chest. “Chosen of Heaven, Explorer of Ancient Ruins, the guy who reached Foundation Establishment overnight!”

And that helped. A little.

Some kind of ancient ruin had been in the jungle when it had been dumped onto London, the kid had found it and gotten something useful from inside, something to jump-start his cultivation. And now, he thought he was some kind of chosen one.

And a little deductive reasoning told her that “Foundation Establishment” was likely the Cultivation equivalent of E-Rank. It was clearly some kind of advancement, an improvement upon standard cultivation as F-Rank, and whatever the cultivation equivalent was would be achieved by simply “stepping onto the path”.

But if it had been D-Rank or above, the kid would have likely been bragging about gaining multiple Ranks overnight.

So, an E-Rank cultivator who might not even be old enough to drink, who’d declared the city of London his property. Surely, this would not go horribly wrong …

“And now, you’ve decided that all of London is yours?” Jaclyn asked.

“I mean, people are getting out, right? The ones who aren’t dead yet? So now its mine. Finders keepers and all that. It’s not like you guys can reclaim this place without technology. You do know that electronics break in here, right?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t work like that …” Jaclyn trailed off.

“My brother says that this country has a rich tradition of taking over places just because it could. I ‘could’ take over this jungle, and you can’t take it back, can you?”

Jaclyn heard a snort behind her, followed by a muttered: “can’t argue with that one”. And honestly, while the argument couldn’t possibly fly in legal situations, but it was ironic that the remnants of the British government were now forced to defend themselves against colonial logic.

“Is your brother in here with you?” she asked. It might be better to talk to someone else, hopefully older.

“A bunch of people are back at the base. You’d like it, it’s got a real Robinson Crusoe vibe. We’re staying here, gonna colonize the jungle and shit. I’m the boss, my brother got turned into a monster and he’s going to become a dragon. And I’m going to be in charge!”

How old were the others, that was the real question. Because the person standing before her was just a “kid” with power and likely unrealistic dreams. But this was just a kid who wanted to posture a little, not some thug who needed to be bribed or arrested. A few stupid jokes, some friendly banter, maybe a bribe of some of the cool loot they’d found in the Dungeon, it should be possible to deal with this without any trouble.

“Is this the part where you ask anyone even remotely attractive to join your harem?” Jaclyn asked dryly. “Or declare that anyone who goes through the jungle has to pay a tax?”

Instead of any of the other potential responses she could have imagined, the kid looked thoughtful

“Do you think I should get a harem? Do those really work?”

Oh, he really was a kid. Sixteen or seventeen, Jaclyn mentally reassessed his age.

“Depends on if you’re looking for love or sex. I’ve seen thruples work, but anything more than that, and your partners are either going to kill each other, or you,” she told him earnestly. “But you’ve still got plenty of time to figure that out.”

She gestured at the root wall.

“Anyway, were we getting too close to your settlement, are you trying to protect the others or your brother?”

“Nah, Louis is the older one, he doesn’t need protection,” the kid laughed. “He’s off chasing smoke signals. And the others are back home, safe. I just wanted to make sure you guys knew this was my place.”

Huh. An older brother who was running around the jungle, apparently transformed during the initial merge and an impressionable youngster who was nominally in charge. No way that could go horribly wrong …

Of course, Jaclyn had only met the Cultivator before her, so her deductions had a limited factual basis, but she could already picture the dynamic between the two in her mind.

A more world-wise individual staying out of the limelight while a young and inexperienced person played the nominal “leader”, taking all the heat when the organization inevitably clashed with the authorities.

And unless she was very far off the mark, that was what was going on here.

A kid playing around at being the chosen hero while challenging legal authority to rile things up, with an older, wiser, and potentially stronger person replacing him when things came to a head, presenting terms that seemed “reasonable” only compared to the ridiculous nonsense the first person came up with.

It was a scheme worthy of Machiavelli, but it could work, in her experience. Making unreasonable initial demands and then “letting oneself be talked down to something more reasonable” was a useful negotiating strategy, but if someone else took the unreasonable stance, one could take it a lot further.

But with any luck, if this big-brother-turned-monster was as bad as she assumed, he’d die in the Dungeon.

And they really did need to get back out here by tomorrow at the very latest, see if they could find that settlement, make some connections, ensure things weren’t too crazy there.

Because they could let be a bunch of kids playing jungle explorer. But this could turn ugly. As in, “Lord of the Flies” ugly.

“Ok, now we know you’re here and between you and me, we’re a lot more concerned about making sure the jungle doesn’t spread than reclaiming it,” Jaclyn told the cultivator. “So, would you mind …”

“Oh yeah, sure,” the kid said, waved his hand in the general direction of the root wall and the way opened up. “By the way, name’s Fields. Oliver Fields.”

Jaclyn just chuckled inwardly.

“Inspector Jaclyn Abrams,” she responded, offering her hand for him to shake. He didn’t even notice as he’d already turned to leave.

“I guess that’s it?” she said, turning to Lowe. “Let’s get out of here.”

***

A few hours later, Jaclyn was back in her hotel room, lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Today had been, in a word, bizarre.

The Dungeon had been a lot, sure, but that was just a part of the new world, she supposed.

That Cultivator, though … just because he was a kid and not outright malicious didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.

In fact, the fact that he was still a kid made him more dangerous. Adults, unless they were terminally stupid, tended to be at least somewhat aware of dangers. Someone waving around a gun was aware of the fact that it could kill someone, someone with a knife knew not to drop it on their feet, yet this kid had thrown a barrier in the path of a speeding vehicle while leaving very little time for the driver to react.

And kids rebelled, sure, rebellion was a natural part of childhood, but it was really a question of what was being rebelled about.

Deciding that bedtime was stupid was ok, if frustrating to deal with as a parent.

The impact of deciding to ignore age restrictions on media depended on whether the kid chose one of the latter Harry Potter movies or accidentally wound up watching the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

And grand decisions like trying to annex a large chunk of London … oh, she could imagine so many horror scenarios coming from the midn of someone who decided to do something so insane.