Side Story Arc: The Whispering Zephyrs and the Hidden Kingdom
Chapter 5: The Vibranium Mirage
The African jungle was alive. It was loud, hot, and heavy.
Initiate Jin and Initiate Suyin sat high up on the thick, mossy branch of a giant mahogany tree. Below them, the jungle floor was a dark tangle of green vines, giant ferns, and wet mud. The air was very thick with water. It felt like trying to breathe inside a warm bath.
Everywhere around them, life was moving and making noise. Monkeys howled from the tops of the trees. Brightly colored birds called out to each other. Millions of bugs buzzed and clicked in the bushes. To the spies from Ta Lo, who were used to the clean, perfect, and quiet air of their magic home, this place felt messy and wild.
But straight ahead of them, the wild jungle just stopped.
Through a break in the green leaves, they could see a huge mountain range. The mountains reached high up into the blue sky. They were covered in the same green jungle trees. They looked completely normal. They looked like they had been there since the beginning of the world.
But Jin knew they were fake.
"The wind is lying," Jin said softly. He sat very still on the tree branch. He closed his pale eyes and used his special Air magic.
[System Interface: Zephyr Operative Jin]
Active Skill: [Atmospheric Barometry]
Status: Scanning local air pressure.
Jin did not just feel the breeze on his skin. He could feel how the air moved across the whole valley. He could feel the wind rolling over the tops of the trees.
But when the wind hit the giant mountain ahead of them, it did not act right. When wind hits a real mountain, it gets pushed up. It creates cold drafts and swirling circles of air.
Here, the wind just stopped. It hit a flat, invisible wall and bounced right back.
"The mountain is not made of rock," Jin explained to Suyin. His voice was low and serious. "It is a wall. A giant, smooth wall. The air hits it and slides off perfectly. There are no bumps, no rocks, no trees for the wind to blow through. What we are seeing with our eyes is not really there."
Suyin nodded. She sat next to him on the wide branch. Her blue silk robes were damp from the heavy jungle air. She let out a long breath and dropped her own magic trick. The special, invisible water mist she wore around her body melted away. For the first time since they left Berlin, she was completely visible.
She needed to save her energy. The trip across the world had made her very tired.
"You are right, Jin," Suyin said. She looked deeply at the mountain. Her blue eyes narrowed. She was using her Water magic to look at the light and the moisture in the air.
[System Interface: Zephyr Operative Suyin]
Active Skill: [Photonic Analysis]
Status: Looking at how light bends.
"It is a trick," Suyin whispered. Her voice was full of wonder and a little bit of fear. "It is a very big, very perfect trick."
"Explain what you see," Jin asked. He kept his eyes closed, focusing on the wind.
"In Ta Lo, our home is hidden by the Bamboo Maze," Suyin started. She used simple words to explain the complex magic. "The Guardian Dragon folded the space. The maze bends the actual world. If a normal person walks into the bamboo, the space turns them around. It is magic space."
She pointed at the mountain range ahead of them.
"This is not folded space," Suyin said. "This is a giant picture. Someone, or something, has built a massive wall of pure energy. And they are painting a picture of a mountain on the outside of that wall."
Jin opened his eyes and looked at the mountain. "Painting with what?"
"With light," Suyin answered. She moved her hand, pulling a few drops of water from the wet jungle air. She made the water float in front of her. Then, she bent the water so it acted like a mirror.
"Light travels in straight lines," she explained. "But you can bend light with water or glass. Whoever lives behind that fake mountain is using machines to bend the light perfectly. The machines take a picture of a real mountain and project it onto the giant energy wall. They are bending the sun's rays to fool our eyes."
Jin felt a cold chill run down his back. It was not a cold wind. It was fear.
"In Berlin, we saw one man in a black panther suit," Jin said slowly. "He had a small shield made of energy on his arm. He had a suit made of metal that ate sound and force."
Jin pointed at the huge, fake mountain. It stretched for miles and miles across the horizon.
"Suyin, that fake mountain is miles wide. If they can build an energy shield that big... how much power do they have? How many people live inside?"
Suyin shook her head. "I do not know. But the Dragon sent us to find out. We must learn what kind of weapons the outside world has. If these people decide to leave their hidden home and attack the rest of the world, Ta Lo needs to be ready."
Jin completely agreed. They were spies. Their job was to watch, to learn, and to report back to the golden lake in Ta Lo.
"We need to get closer," Jin said. He slowly stood up on the tree branch. His legs ached from the fight in Berlin, but the healing water Suyin had used in the bunker had fixed his broken ribs. He felt strong again.
"We cannot fly over it," Jin warned. "If we fly, we might hit the energy wall. We must walk on the ground. We will walk right up to the edge of the fake picture."
"I am ready," Suyin said. She stood up next to him.
She raised her hands and pulled the heavy, wet air of the jungle toward her body. The water wrapped around her like a tight, invisible blanket. She used her magic to bend the light around her body. In one second, she melted away. She became totally invisible again. She looked exactly like the green leaves and brown branches behind her.
"I am hidden," Suyin's voice whispered softly in Jin's ear. She was using a tiny bit of vibrating water to send her voice straight to him, so no one else could hear.
"I will silence our steps," Jin whispered back.
He looked down at the dark jungle floor, a hundred feet below them. He did not climb down the tree like a normal person. He jumped.
As he fell through the hot, sticky air, Jin used his Air magic.
[System Interface: Zephyr Operative Jin]
Active Skill: [Acoustic Nullification]
Status: Erasing all sound from footsteps.
Jin pulled all the air away from the bottom of his boots. He created an empty space, a perfect vacuum. Sound needs air to travel. If there is no air, there is no sound.
He landed softly on the muddy jungle floor. There was no splash. There was no snapping of twigs. He was totally silent.
A moment later, he felt a tiny push of air next to him. He knew Suyin had landed beside him, even though he could not see her.
"Follow me," Jin whispered. "Stay exactly one step behind."
They began to walk through the thick jungle toward the fake mountain.
The walk was slow and very hard. The jungle was full of giant roots, slippery mud, and sharp thorn bushes. A normal human would have to use a big knife to chop their way through. They would make a lot of noise. They would leave a wide path of broken plants behind them.
The spies from Ta Lo did not use knives. They used magic to move without touching anything.
Jin used his Air magic to gently push the thorny vines out of the way just enough to slip through. As soon as he passed, he let the vines swing back to their natural place. He left no broken branches. He left no footprints because he walked slightly above the mud on a cushion of air.
Suyin followed him perfectly. She was invisible, moving like a ghost through the hot, green shadows.
They walked for two hours. The sun began to rise higher in the sky. The heat became very intense. The air felt heavy and suffocating. Bugs bit at Jin's skin, but he ignored them. A spy does not swat a bug and make a sound. A spy handles the pain.
As they got closer and closer to the fake mountain, Jin noticed something very strange.
The jungle was getting quiet.
Two miles back, the jungle had been deafening. The monkeys had been screaming. The birds had been singing loudly.
But now, as they walked within a mile of the hidden kingdom, the animals were gone.
"Look," Jin whispered, pointing to the ground.
There was a clear, straight line in the dirt. On one side of the line, there were many animal tracks in the mud—paw prints of leopards, hoof prints of small deer. But none of the tracks crossed the line. The animals walked up to this point, turned around, and went back into the deep jungle.
"The animals know," Suyin whispered in his ear. "They cannot see the energy wall, but their instincts tell them this place is not natural. They stay away."
"We are close," Jin said. His heart beat a little faster.
He closed his eyes and used his connection to the Earth Temple radar one more time. He wanted to feel the ground. He wanted to feel the special, heavy metal that they had seen in Berlin. The metal that ate sound and force. The metal the system called the Kinetic Void Alloy.
Jin pushed his mind down into the dirt. He felt past the roots of the trees. He felt deep into the rock below.
What he felt made him gasp.
"By the Dragon," Jin whispered out loud. He opened his eyes. They were wide with shock.
"What is it?" Suyin asked quickly.
"In Berlin, we saw a piece of metal the size of an apple," Jin explained. His voice was shaking just a little bit. "The Russian scientist said it came from a meteor. I thought they only had a small box of it."
Jin pointed straight ahead, toward the fake, light-painted mountain.
"Suyin, it is not just a small box. The entire ground ahead of us... for miles and miles down... it is made of that metal. The whole fake mountain is sitting on top of a giant, glowing mountain of the gray metal. It is the biggest piece of treasure in the world."
Suyin was quiet for a long time.
If this hidden kingdom had a whole mountain of the metal that could stop any punch or bullet, they were nearly impossible to defeat. They could make thousands of suits like the black panther suit. They could make unstoppable weapons.
"We must find the edge of the shield," Suyin finally said. Her voice was brave, but Jin could hear the worry in it. "We must see if there is a way inside. We cannot report to the Dragon until we know exactly what is hiding under this fake mountain."
They kept walking.
The trees began to thin out. The ground became rocky and hard.
Finally, they stepped out of the thick trees and stood in a small, rocky clearing.
Right in front of them was the mountain. To the normal human eye, it looked like a wall of solid gray rock covered in green vines. It looked like a hard cliff that you would have to climb.
Jin knew better. He walked slowly forward. He held his right hand out in front of him.
He took one step. Then another.
"Stop," Suyin whispered sharply.
Jin stopped. His hand was hovering in the empty air, about three feet away from the fake rock cliff.
"What do you see?" Jin asked.
"You are very close to the light-bending field," Suyin answered. "If you step any closer, your body will pass through the fake picture. You will disrupt the light. They might have cameras that can see the picture warping."
Jin looked at his empty hand. He could not see the wall, but he could feel it now.
The air in front of his hand felt buzzy. It felt like standing too close to a giant lightning storm. The hairs on his arm stood up perfectly straight. His skin tingled with a sharp, static electricity feeling.
"I can feel the energy," Jin said. "It is a massive wall of power. It is vibrating very fast."
"Let me test it," Suyin said.
Jin heard the soft sound of water moving. He knew Suyin was pulling a small amount of moisture from the humid jungle air.
"I am going to throw a tiny drop of water at the wall," Suyin explained. "Just one drop. Like a raindrop. I want to see what happens when physical matter touches the energy."
Jin took a step back to give her room. "Do it."
From the empty air next to Jin, a single, tiny drop of clear water shot forward. It flew through the air and hit the invisible energy wall right in front of the fake rock cliff.
BZZZT.
It was a very soft sound, like a bug hitting a hot lamp.
But the visual effect was amazing.
The moment the water drop touched the invisible wall, the fake picture of the rock cliff rippled. It looked like someone threw a stone into a calm pond.
But the ripples were not the color of rocks or vines. The ripples were a bright, glowing, neon purple color.
For just one second, the fake picture of the mountain faded away in that small spot. Through the purple, glowing ripples of the giant energy shield, Jin and Suyin saw what was really hiding inside.
They saw tall, shiny buildings made of silver and glass. They saw flying ships shaped like sleek birds darting between the tall towers. They saw a bright, clean, beautiful city that looked like it belonged hundreds of years in the future.
Then, the purple ripples stopped. The fake picture of the rock cliff quickly reappeared, hiding the beautiful city once again.
Jin and Suyin stood in the hot jungle, completely stunned.
They had traveled from the ancient, magic-filled valleys of Ta Lo. They had walked through the dirty, crowded, gray concrete cities of Europe. They thought the outside world was messy and primitive.
They were wrong.
Here, hidden deep in the African jungle behind a wall of fake light and purple energy, was a kingdom that was far more advanced than anything on Earth. It was a kingdom of science, metal, and light.
"They built a paradise," Suyin whispered, her voice full of shock. "They used their special metal to build a perfect city, and then they locked themselves away from the rest of the world."
"Just like us," Jin realized. The thought made him feel very strange. "Ta Lo hides behind a bamboo maze to protect our magic. These people hide behind an energy shield to protect their technology. We are looking in a mirror."
"We need to get closer," Suyin said, her spy instincts taking over again. "We need to find out how many people live there. We need to find out if they know about magic."
"The shield is a solid wall of energy," Jin said, looking at the spot where the purple light had flashed. "I cannot use my vacuum steps to walk through it. If we touch it, it will light up purple again. They will know we are here."
"I can try to slip through as water," Suyin suggested. "If I turn myself into a very fine mist, maybe I can float through the tiny gaps in the energy."
"No," Jin said quickly. "The shield destroyed your ice needles in Berlin. If you touch it as mist, it might destroy you. We must find a seam. A door. Every wall has a door."
Jin began to walk slowly along the edge of the invisible boundary. He kept his hand a few inches away from the buzzy, static air. He closed his eyes and used his Air magic to feel the tiny vibrations in the shield.
He was looking for a weak spot. A place where the energy was slightly thinner.
They walked for ten minutes along the edge of the fake cliff. The jungle remained totally quiet. There were no animals. There was only the buzzing sound of the giant shield.
Suddenly, Jin stopped.
"Here," he whispered.
He pointed at a spot in the air. "The pressure here is different. The energy is overlapping. I think this is where they open the shield to let their flying ships out. It is a seam in the wall."
"Can you open it?" Suyin asked.
Jin took a deep breath. "I can try to use my Air magic to carefully push the two sides of the energy apart. Just enough for us to slip through."
He raised both of his hands. He did not want to attack the shield. He wanted to gently pry it open.
He focused his mind. He pulled a small amount of his Air magic up from his stomach. He aimed it at the invisible seam in the wall.
[System Interface: Zephyr Operative Jin]
Active Skill: [Barometric Wedge]
Status: Attempting to separate energy fields.
Jin pushed his magic into the crack in the shield.
He expected the shield to resist. He expected it to spark or buzz.
He did not expect what happened next.
The moment Jin's magic touched the seam, the entire section of the fake mountain in front of them vanished.
The picture of the rocks and vines disappeared. The giant, glowing purple energy shield became completely visible. It towered hundreds of feet into the air, humming with a loud, angry sound.
But the shield did not open.
Instead, a loud, mechanical alarm began to ring from inside the dome. It was a sharp, high-pitched sound that hurt Jin's ears.
"Jin! We triggered an alarm!" Suyin shouted. She dropped her invisibility mist, knowing it was useless now. The bright purple light of the shield lit up her blue robes.
Jin quickly pulled his hands back. "I didn't break it! The shield sensed the magic! It reacted to the chi!"
Before they could turn around and run back into the thick jungle, the air all around them began to shimmer.
It was the same shimmering effect they had seen in the rafters of the warehouse in Berlin.
Out of thin air, twelve figures suddenly appeared.
They dropped down from the trees. They stepped out from behind the large rocks. They had been hiding in the jungle, completely invisible, watching Jin and Suyin the entire time.
They were completely surrounded.
The twelve figures were all wearing the same sleek, matte-black panther suits they had seen in Germany. They were Wakandan War Dogs. Elite spies and assassins of the hidden kingdom.
They held sleek, glowing spears in their hands. The tips of the spears hummed with deadly, blue sonic energy. Every single spear was pointed directly at Jin and Suyin.
The trap had been sprung. The spies from Ta Lo, the untouchable ghosts of the wind and water, had just been out-stealthed by the masters of technology.
Jin and Suyin stood back-to-back in the small rocky clearing. The purple light of the giant dome glowed behind them. The glowing blue spears of the Wakandan warriors trapped them in the front.
The collision of shadows was no longer a secret fight in a dark warehouse. It was a standoff at the border of two hidden empires, and neither side knew exactly what they were facing.