The next two days for Kaleb were virtually the same. Work on the arm when he could and then go on patrol. The streets were relatively low maintenance now, though. Just a few wannabe thieves and low-level gangs that thought their area was free of other gangs. But none of their Super Group had run into any sign of the supposed B-Tier threat that was using their territory to set themselves up.

Jar and Abby had hit a few gang hideouts and even Kaleb and some of the others had hit a few. All they found were empty buildings or, sometimes, buildings full of dead bodies. It seemed that whenever a gang didn't bend the knee to this new kingpin; they were dealt with. Mysteriously and efficiently. They found no wounds or signs of attack on the bodies they found. But they were all cold as ice and sometimes they'd have their facial features missing. Farrah hadn't been kidding about what this new threat could do, either. The faces were smooth, as if the missing lips, eyes, or mouth had never been there to begin with.

Kaleb had tried to find a cause of death, but the police had argued for their own people to do the autopsies. He had wanted to argue the point. But with his schedule already pretty full, Kaleb backed off. Although it also took some persuading from the others. His college course and the fact that the Trucium was coming in this morning was also an enormous factor. Today was the day that their entire workshop would be focused on creating a more flexible metal. Everyone was practically buzzing about the workshop when Kaleb and Clara left for the school in the morning. Kaleb had to give his assistants a warning about starting without him. Terrance seemed fine with that, but Daivor and Marie looked downright affronted.

"Would you stop shaking your leg? You're going to vibrate the car out from under us," Clara said jokingly.

"How are you not excited?" Kaleb asked as he stilled his leg.

They were on their way back from teaching their classes for the day, and Kaleb could not wait. The Trucium had been dropped off in the morning and he'd been half paying attention as he taught his students. In truth, he could hardly remember the lesson. Then he had to wait for Clara's class to get out and then he rushed the bird-woman out the door and into her car.

"I'm excited. But we still don't know if we can pull off what the young lady has planned. Creating a new alloy isn't easy. Not to mention we don't know how much TekNik passed on to us. We could be stuck with a small portion and have to wait for the next shipment."

"Just kick a lizard in his gonads, why don't you? Can't you let me be happy?"

"You can be as happy as you want. Just set expectations. What we should do is plan for if the alloy fails."

"Why would I plan to fail?"

"I didn't say plan to fail. I said we should be prepared IF it fails."

"Or we can not worry about that until we've actually failed and then move on from there. I mean, what we should be doing is examining the chemical compositions of the alloys we know have the properties we want."

He could almost feel Clara rolling her eyes at him. These past few days working side-by-side, they had developed an understanding of each other's styles… and they drove each other crazy. Kaleb imagined Clara was the type of inventor Jar-Lock would love to get behind. Everything was planned through to ridiculous proportions and then slowly tested. She was the embodiment of measure five times, cut once… in September… after checking with the wood first. Meanwhile, she seemed repelled by Kaleb's own style of test now, duct tape the wounds, and then try again immediately. For some unknown reason.

But in truth, they seemed to oddly work well together. She helped Kaleb with the interior planning and wire management for his arm. She also managed the discussions with TekNik with a surprising amount of fervor. So much so, that D34d-I even tried to poach her. However, she was a little skittish about the working environment. Apparently she had looked in on a few patrols while Kaleb was out and the bird-woman seem hesitant to join up with them. Kaleb and the others respected her wishes and didn't ask again over the last two days.

"Just let me prepare some notes and guidelines before you and the young Nova go off half-cocked again."

Kaleb scoffed, but quietly agreed. Turning to the window, he watched the streets of Austin give way to the back roads and wide open fields of the suburbs. Player and NPC Supes still crisscrossed the roads and skies all around them as people went about their day. He idly wondered what adventures the other Players were finding in the game. He and the others had batted around the idea that there would-be kingpin was a Player. But they'd shut that down quickly. Claire and Abby scoured the forums for any sign of someone bragging about being in their area. But nothing came of it. Most of the players were either dealing with the problems of downtown or they'd run off to stake their own claim around Austin. They all vowed to keep an open mind, but the consensus within the group was that they were dealing with an NPC.

Kaleb snapped out of his thoughts when Clara turned them onto the dirt road leading to the hangar. Like a kid at Christmas, Kaleb sat up straight and practically started drooling. They flashed their faces at the gate guard and then got waved through. Driving down the runway, Kaleb gripped the edges of his seat to stop himself from leaping from the car. He thought he heard Clara scoff again, but he ignored it as the hangar got bigger in the distance.

Clara brought their car around the side of the building and Kaleb was already removing his belt and dashing away from the car. Clara's admonishment was drowned out as he passed through the blue shield surrounding their home. Kaleb speed-walked around the Hunters and Brute lizards, giving him weird looks. Ignoring them completely. He was around the corner of his lab and through the door by the time he heard Clara enter the hangar's interior.

He stopped just inside the workshop when he realized that none of the stations were manned. No one was doing anything in the workshop. The forge was blazing and all the computers were on, but he couldn't find any of his assistants for a hot minute. Then a noise wrenched his vision toward the southern side of his workshop. Terrance, Marie, and Roy were hovering around something on the floor of the shop. Judging by the smoke clouds rising into the sky, he guessed Daivor was there too. Rushing over, Kaleb looked over Marie's shoulder to see what his assistants were looking at. A smile growing on his face.

"Is that all…?"

"Trucium? Yep." Daivor rumbled, tapping his foot on the plastic bucket he was standing on. "A five-gallon bucket of the stuff."

"More than we need to run some test." Marie added excitedly, reaching for the bucket now that Kaleb was here.

Daivor swatted the girl's hand away from the bucket and looked up at Kaleb. "We have the Trucium and a good amount of Ucrine. I say we analyze the properties of both before we introduce the alien metals. Once the metals are introduced, we can then see about enchantments and magic."

"Y'all haven't been testing the stuff already?"

Terrance, Marie, and Roy got guilty looks on their faces as Daivor tapped his foot on the large bucket. Looking at the gnome's feet, Kaleb spotted an electronic lock built into the bucket's top. The lock was designed to accept a four digit alpha-numeric code. Kaleb could see the tiny keyboard built into the lock, and he raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"TekNik mentioned a transfer code, Professor." Clara said as she let herself into the workshop.

"And when were you going to tell me about it?"

"Right before I inputted the code for the bucket."

Kaleb rolled his eyes and stepped aside as the lithe Clara pushed herself between them all. Daivor moved to the edge of the bucket as Clara bent low and rapidly tapped a code into the bucket's lock. Once the code was inserted, the bucket hissed like a balloon. A tangy scent of metal filled Kaleb's nostrils, and he rubbed his hands together as they all looked down into the bucket. A sea of glittering, silver sand filled the bucket. Marie and Roy shared a quiet smile as Kaleb started calculating how much they'd need and have left over.

"I single scoop should be what we need, but I think…"

Clara was cut off as Marie used the scoop that came with the bucket to grab herself a sample. The young girl made a beeline for her workstation as Terrance and Roy grabbed some for themselves and rushed to their own corners. Kaleb grinned at the irate-looking bird lady before he carefully started moving the bucket to his station. Daivor swung up to his shoulder and watched the glittering sand like a hawk.

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Under Kaleb's feet, homunculi were dashing around, ready to fulfill whatever orders Kaleb could come up with. He heard Clara heave a heavy sigh before she followed him. She pulled up a stool and watched him like a hawk as he scooped a sample of the metal dust onto his station. Daivor brought the sample of Ucrine plates as Kaleb swung his computer screen toward the samples. Using the monitors scanner, he then brought up each item's basic information.

"Okay, looks like we choose a metal and add the dust and plates at the same time during the forging process. Depending on the amounts used, the metal is giving a certain amount of elasticity. So what we need to do is…"

"STOP! All four of you! Right now! If you all insist on doing things this way, we are at least going to have some procedure. Terrance, you start with the smallest ratio of Trucium to Ucrine. Marie, use a thirty-seventy split. Roy, fifty-fifty."

"And I guess I'm going with a ninety-ten split?" Kaleb questioned.

"Exactly. We'll test things out with terrestrial metals first and then we can test the alien ones. Just to see how the chemicals react."

"It says the chemicals react better with earth metals, anyway." Daivor pointed out, using his pipe to point at the screen. "But I still want to see what the alien metals will do with the stuff."

Kaleb blew out a breath, but nodded at the plan. Seeing his assent, the teens hurried about their work. They would all have to share and worked around the forge, but it would work. Using iron ingots as the baseline, Terrance tested his ratio first. They found that the metal was pliable. But nowhere near what they need and the process produced a lot of slag. At least Scott was happy with that, though.

Next, Marie tested her amounts, using the type of ingot. Terrance mentioned the ingots were even forged in the same batch. So, at the very least, they were getting as close to the exact same conditions as they could. Marie's sample came out as they all expected. Malleable and soft, but not quite to their standard. Roy's sample was exactly what they needed, but the iron retained too much heat. Daivor surmised that the metal would melt under the heat generated by the Weikacol solution, and both Kaleb and Clara agreed.

Kaleb didn't think trying his ratio was as important after finding Roy's. But Clara insisted, so Kaleb forged a small ingot out of the correct amounts. The resulting grayish putty was as useless as Kaleb imagined. But the stuff had interesting properties, anyway. In fact, Kaleb set it aside in a beaker to test later. Ignoring Clara's eye roll at his antics, Kaleb turned to the robotics teacher with a questioning look on his face.

"Okay, so we found the ratio we need. Now we just have to make sure it holds with different metals. Now, Terrance, you try aluminum. Marie tries copper and Roy, you try brass." Clara instructed, before looking at Kaleb again.

"Care to guess?" She asked.

"I'm thinking either silver or gold if you're looking for soft metals," Kaleb answered.

"Silver. Gold would probably be useless in this instance."

He was unsure how Clara was so sure of that, but they all set about testing their new metals. The forge belched flames as Scott sat idly within it. Kaleb was excited to see where everything was going, but a knock on his workshop door pulled his attention away. He even looked around to see if someone else would get it. But aside from the homunculi, who were slowly building a ladder of themselves up to the doorknob, no one moved.

Sighing, Kaleb got up and opened the door a crack. Jar-lock's wide, robed chest was directly in his eyeline and Kaleb grunted before looking upward. The massive mage watched him as he stood to his full height and asked.

"What's up?"

"We've discovered something. We need to have a quick meeting."

"Now?"

Jar-lock sighed through his nose. "Yes, now! This is important, Professor."

"So is this. We're inventing a new metal in here."

"Not yet, we aren't." Clara shouted, unhelpfully. "Go do your hero stuff, Professor."

Kaleb groaned in annoyance before opening the door wider and stepping out. Sticking his head back into the shop, he shouted. "Don't any of you dare test my sample without me!"

"No promises!" All five people in his workshop shouted at him.

Kaleb grumbled angrily as he shut the door and spun on his heels. Once again, he was face to face with Jar-lock. The mage was looking at him with a curious look, but eventually he shook his head and pointed toward the Command Center. They both trudged over in silence as more and more people seemed to dash around. For the first time, Kaleb realized something big must have happened. The Command Center was back to being a hive of activity.

Claire, Two Gun, Abby, Vivienne, and D34d-I were waiting at the table as Kaleb and Jar-lock reach it. They each walked to their seats, but Jar-lock reached into his pocket and tossed something on the round table before he sat. Kaleb sat up as the tiny wooden thing hit the table with a clunk. Vivienne and Abby gazed at the thing with interest. But Kaleb and the others were confused.

"What you all are looking at is a Totem. Abby and I found it in the basement of a supposedly closed business on Main Street."

"How the hell did you find the damn thing?" Two Gun asked, reaching out to touch the wooden sculpture.

"It wasn't easy." Jar-lock admitted. "It was hidden under a bunch of intricate wards and shields spells that I…"

"He fell through the floor into the basement." Abby interjected. "He practically crushed the thing."

"Whoa, babe. Are you alright?" Vivienne asked.

Jar-lock nodded while shooting an evil look at Abby. The smaller woman scoffed and shrugged her shoulders at him before adding.

"What? It's true. We were scouting the abandoned buildings for signs of gang activity and he just went fwoop. Right through the floor."

"Either way. It brought us this… whatever the hell it is." Kaleb said. "Which, I'm guessing, is important?"

"Deeply." Jar-lock nodded. "Totems are like small pockets of power for whoever created them. Now sometimes they can help boost a spell. But other times, they can hold a spell in reserve until they are activated."

"That's what this one is doing?" Claire asked.

"Indeed. This little bugger was holding a pretty simple spell. One that barely had much range on it at all. But if it was tied into a network of other Totems. The results would be disastrous."

"Wannabe kingpin disastrous?"

"No, Professor. Like wiping out several city blocks."

Vivienne practically shuddered in fear. "The spell in there is that powerful?"

"Yes, and no. The spell itself wouldn't do any damage. But the things it summoned would wreak havoc on the surrounding people and buildings."

"Summoned?"

"Yeah. As near as I can tell, the spell held within that Totem was designed to open and summon some kind of magical creatures."

"Gates." Kaleb said. "Your talking about opening gates to different planes."

"Like the one those goblins came through?" Two Gun asked.

"Probably the very same kind. Leading to Fae or some other magical plane of existence. Someone is trying to drop a whole lot of creatures on this neighborhood."

D34d-I glanced at the tiny wooden Totem on the table before quacking.

*Quack*

"They are going to do that with this tiny thing?"

"Not just that one. But a whole host of them. Also, someone's been feeding this one magical power slowly. When we removed it, the power drained out of it in a hurry. So the Totems must remain in place and charged regularly."

"Probably so we wouldn't find them?"

"Viv, could you and Jar-lock hunt the others down quickly?" Abby asked.

Vivienne looked to Jar-lock, who shook his head. "Not if they used the same wards and shield spells. I literally had to fall on this one, Abby."

"So, how do we find the others?" Kaleb asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

"I've got Farrah sending out the drones at street level right now. But really I think I'm going to have to research the Leylines again. If I'm right, the Totems will be placed along the lines of power for easy charging. I just have to cross-reference the lines with the street layout. From there, it's just a matter of finding abandoned buildings."

"So you and Vivienne can get on that. But what about the rest of us?"

"We need to warn our allies, dear. At the very least, the Hunter's Association needs to know. Someone also has to call the police and tell them what we found."

A general groan of distrust echoed around the table at Claire's words from everyone except for D34d-I. So, obviously, the duck was nominated to make that particular phone call. While the table broke down into possible Totem locations, Kaleb stared at the tiny wooden idol laying on the table. Now that he got a proper look at the thing, he could see it kind of looked like an enormous bear. Except its claws were longer, and it seemed to have some kind of liquid dripping from its mouth. He'd never seen a creature like it and he hoped the Totem wasn't indicative of the type of creature it would summon. Giant magical bears would not be a good way to die.

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