Over the next week, Pandora noticed that Michael Carpenter was being locked out of various intelligence accounts. During that time the other 63 soldiers came online while Mistress Carpenter got the bunker set up for a long haul and moved every down below secondary fallback point which is more than five miles below the surface.

  Normally it would have been almost impossible to dig that deep. With her Absorb ability, it was child's play to dig the tunnels necessary to get that deep and then to have a company come in and set everything up under some very serious Non-Disclosure agreements. Of course, that had required a separate access point and more tunnels but that hadn’t taken long either. Digging the tunnels had led to the discoveries that funded the endeavor. She’d created the deep base in a single day. It had taken another 3 months to get everything else set up down there. Water, sewage, hydroponics and secured connections to the surface.

  Once Michael Carpenter started to get shut out, well that’s when Pandora decided to get everyone into the deep bunker. This included the 81 soldiers who had all taken a vow within the SYSTEM. It also helped that they followed Mistress Carpenter’s orders without issue. A day later Pandora learned that her paranoia was well justified.

  No one, save Michael Carpenter, was at the estate in Cambridge. He’d sent all the local staff home with a promise to pay them in full as a reward for all the hard work they’d done in the last week moving most of the permanent staff up to Scarborough. He, Pandora, was sitting at his desk looking over various financial reports when a missile traveling faster than the speed of sound came through the balcony windows behind him and into Pandora.

  The missile had been traveling so fast that Pandora hadn’t even had time to react as her perception picked the missile when it came in through the balcony window. At Mach 1.5 it was traveling 1,606 feet per second which put it at moving just under one-third of a mile per second. Pandora didn’t have time to think about that as the weapon slammed into her and exploded.

  Pandora is slightly surprised when a message pops into her vision on the material plane

  You Have Di…Error!, Error!, Error!

  Pandora: Caspa are you seeing this?

  Caspa: Pandora why can we talk like this?

  Caspa: Oh?

  Caspa: That’s NOT Good!

  Caspa: Pandora you need to concentrate on bringing our bodies back together.

  Caspa: Pandora, You need to do that NOW!

  Pandora trusted Caspa implicitly and tried to think of herself coming back together. It was weird. Her mind felt like it was reaching out with hands made of air that were trying to catch little pieces of something that was also made of air.

  Caspa: I know this isn’t helping but we need to try to do this faster. Here I’m going to try to help.

  Pandora felt Caspa flow over her mental point of view. With their minds layered like this and reaching for the other parts of herself and Caspa they didn’t need to talk mentally anymore they could just talk.

  “This is bad,” Caspa said.

  “Why is this bad?” Pandora asked. “Can’t we just bring our bodies back together?”

  “Yes, and no?” Caspa said.

  “Yes, we can reform our body. In fact, I’m pretty sure that we can’t be killed unless someone can eradicate Chaos, which I’m pretty sure is impossible. That’s not the issue though,” Caspa said.

  “Then what is the problem?” Pandora asked.

  “The problem is that we should not be able to talk like this. The fact that we can talk means that magic is leaking into this world at this location. It wasn’t before we were hit with that air-to-surface missile so…”

  “Are we on one of the natural Leylines on this planet?”

  “I don’t know,” Caspa answers.

  “Okay, let's try to get our body to reform,” Pandora said and then put her mind into growing her body. Once she puts her mind to it her body reforms in a matter of moments and she opened her eyes as she looked up into the night sky

  “Can you hear me, Pandora?” Caspa asked.

  “Yep”

  “Well, that’s not good. Also, look towards your feet, about 12,000 feet up flying through the clouds.”

  “Reaper Drone. I see it. Damn, that camera is looking this way. With infrared there’s no way it doesn’t see us.”

  “Yep, it just launched a missile.”

  Pandora watches the missile, waits until it's about a half mile out then drops into the Shadow Realm through her shadow and stands up. As she looks around she notices a glow In the building in front of her. Pandora walks into the building and back upstairs toward the point where her desk would be in the Material Plane. She’d been brought back together over 200 feet away on the opposite side of the building from the balcony behind the desk she sat at as Michael Carpenter.

  As she came into the room where she’d been sitting before she died she noticed that a small hole seemed to have opened in the Shadow realm and there seemed to be a vortex of swirling shadows where she’d exploded. It looked like a little black hole that the shadows were swirling around before being sucked in.

  “Caspa, what happens if magic starts going back into the world?”

  “Monsters, Dungeons, Leveling, you know all the fun stuff,” Caspa said.

  “Okay, so what do we do now?” Pandora asked.

  “Now? Now you get back up to Scarborough and make sure everyone is safe before we head to Rome and end the asshole that just tried to kill you” Caspa said.

  Pandora nodded, jumped into the air, and passed back into the Material plane. With a thought, she accelerates while moving upward and looking for the reaper drone. Once she sees it, she makes a slight course adjustment which barrels her through the drone destroying it.

  Warning Explosive Damage taken: 25,672 of 25,872 Hit Points Remaining.

  Pandora: Caspa, do we have our notifications back?

  Caspa: Looks that way. Turn north and fly. If they have one Reaper here they probably have one up there too.

  Pandora turns to the north and accelerates. A new message pops into Pandora's vision.

  MANA DETECTED.

  SYSTEM Interface on Standby.

  SYSTEM Interface will become fully available when Mana reaches 20% saturation.

  Current Mana Saturation: 1%

  Pandora: How big was that hole in the universe we made?

  Current Mana Saturation: 3%

  Caspa: I don’t think we made a hole in the universe I think our chaos is unraveling whatever was keeping magic from working here?

  Current Mana Saturation: 6%

  Pandora: Is it exponential then?

  Current Mana Saturation: 10%

  Caspa: It sure looks that way.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Current Mana Saturation: 15%

  Pandora: I’ve seen this pattern before, it’s cumulative 1+2+3, etc…

  Current Mana Saturation: 21%

  SYSTEM Interface Online

  Analyzing User Environment,

  Please wait.

  Pandora minimized her notifications as she closed in on Scarborough and saw a missile flying from a reaper drone toward her Scarborough Estate. With a slight adjustment to her flight path, Pandora came up behind the missile and Absorbed it, turning it into MLAs. Pandora flared her wings, turned, and did the same to the Reaper Drone she did to the last one. She flew right through it destroying it, before it can turn around and try again.

  Current Mana Saturation: 28%

  Pandora stopped to think for a moment. If the Interface was back on, that should mean all of her magic and ancillary abilities that required magic should be back. If they were back she should be able to use telepathy. She focused on the Estate as she flew overhead looking for a guard and then activated telepathy to establish a link when she saw one.

  Current Mana Saturation: 36%

  Pandora: This is Pandora, Look up and you’ll see a dragon-shaped shadow, that’s me

  Guard: Holy shit it’s a dragon!

  Current Mana Saturation: 45%

  Pandora: Yes, I’m in my dragon form. Get everyone inside into the Bunker and then go to this wall and do this, Pandora sends as she also sends images of how to open the secret panel to the secret elevators that will take them all down to the deep bunker.

  Guard: We didn’t believe him when he said you were a dragon

  Current Mana Saturation: 55%

  Pandora: Focus, did you get the instructions, do you know what you need to do?”

  Guard: Yes Ma’am, I’ll get right on that, The guard sent back as he ran inside and Pandora heard an alarm go off. Good man. She’d have to give him a raise someday.

  Current Mana Saturation: 66%

  Pandora turned just in time to see a fighter come in for a gun run, which hurt as she received 1,800 Notifications.

  Current Mana Saturation: 78%

  “Skip everything but the last message,” Caspa said. “It looks like he hit you with his gun for 3 seconds. It must fire 600 round a second if you took 1,800 hits.”

  Pandora just nodded as she minimized the messages and pulled up the last one.

  Current Mana Saturation: 81%

  WARNING! 9 points of damage taken. 6 points of damage resistance. 3 points of damage taken 5,400 Hit Points of 25,872 remaining

  She’d taken over 20,000 hit points of damage! Ow. That had hurt!

  Pandora immediately activated her ability Absorb: Heal Self/Temporary Hit Point Bonus and spent all of her 5232 MLAs to heal 15,696 hit points

  Current Mana Saturation: 95%

  15,696 Hit Points Healed

  21,096 Hit Points of 25,872 remaining.

  So, don’t let a fighter get the bead on her with their guns, good to know. Pandora concentrated on the air fight and watched as both fighters put her in their crosshairs as they came around for her. She easily dodged the 1st fighter and lined herself up to dodge the 2nd fighter. As the 2nd fighter began its run, it tried to follow her, but she was too close at that point.

  Pandora flexed her wings and immediately shifted to her human form as the bullets passed harmlessly below her. With her superior dexterity and agility, she sailed up and over the cockpit and slid along the top of the aircraft until she was able to reach out and touch the vertical stabilizer of the fighter as it sailed past her. Pandora received a message just as she went to check her combat log as the combat turn ended.

  Current Mana Saturation: 100%

  Combat Log:

  500 Mana Spent to transform to human form.

  33 Mana spent to activate Absorb Item

  Vertical Stabilizer absorbed. 635 MLAs gained.

  End Combat Turn

  New Combat Turn

  You have initiative.

  500 Mana to Transform to Dragon Form

  Mana Conversion Activated, 30 MLA converted to 990 Mana.

  61,510 of 61,520 Mana remaining.

  Pandora closed her combat log and recognized that she had a definite advantage. The second fighter was already a half mile away and going into a turn to come back for another pass. This time she flew straight at the fighter and used her breath weapon on it. No fuss, No muss. One moment it was there, the next it wasn’t. 20,000 damage to her for a free trip into the Shadow Realm. Have fun, Asshole! She thought.

  Pandora turned and headed west along the A64 highway as she headed inland and away from Mr. Carpenter’s Estate looking for a petrol station. Once she found one, she transformed into Michael Carpenter as she came in for a landing and used her ability Absorb Kinetic Energy to arrest her momentum as she touched down. This garnered a few more MLAs. Michael Carpenter looked around but was pretty sure no one saw him land as he walked into the rest stop. He walked over to the pay phone, inserted his card, and called the number for the deep bunker.

  After two rings Mistress Carpenter picked up, “May I help you?”

  “It’s me. Keep everyone there, watch the news, and block the entrance. I’ll come back for you after I’m done. It’s time to cut the head off of this problem.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Mistress Carpenter asked.

  “Just keep an eye on everyone. Once I’m done, I’ll come and explain what that means to everyone. No matter what happens you should all be safe there. If there are others you want to bring in, do so, but vet them thoroughly and be careful. You can easily hold 500 people. You can increase your numbers up to 1,000 with very few issues. If you add more than that you’ll run out of supplies fast.

  “Understood. We’ll keep things going here until you get back. Also, Pandora, Thank you,” Mistress Carpenter said before she cut the line.

  Just then the static filled the line as a bright flash off to the east lit up the early morning sky. Pandora realized that she would have gone blind in that moment if not for her ability to heal herself, which she does automatically. As her vision came back she saw a very small mushroom cloud rising into the sky. Pandora turned her attention back to the phone she’d been holding and asked, “You still there?”

  “Yes, what was that?”

  “They detonated a nuke on the estate.”

  “Interesting, the only thing we felt down here was a slight vibration and of course the static that cut off the line for a second.”

  “Have the guards double-check the facility for damage. It wasn’t a big nuke, probably 1 kiloton yield or so. Still, better to be safe, than sorry.”

  “Will do.”

  “I’ll contact you when I can, better get a move on,” Michael Carpenter said into the phone before he hung up. A couple of people were still standing in the open. Luckily they’d had their backs to the blast so while they were dazed they weren’t blinded. Michael walked over to them and helped them get over and behind a wall. While the nuke was far enough away that most of the shockwave had attenuated into the atmosphere by the time it reached the petrol station, it was still powerful enough to knock people over if they weren’t ready for it. Standing behind a wall or fence was all that was needed until it passed.

  Pandora looked around, went over to the men’s bathroom, and entered. Pandora took on her human form with her black jumpsuit on and exited the bathroom. She exited the petrol station and started walking west down the sidewalk. While she walked SYSTEM Messages populated in her vision.

  SYSTEM Interface 10.0.0.1 has come online.

  Initial analysis of SYSTEM Users and XP awards reviewed.

  Automatic levels and attribute distribution halted. Please see Personal Information to assign earned Attribute points.

  Pandora pulled up her Experience Log, which hadn’t changed since she arrived in this world. She’d glanced at it while she’d talked to Caspa in her Mindspace back then She’d been Level 0 with 0 XP. The information hadn’t been that interesting, so she’d ignored it. Now though there was XP for four Level 7 soldiers, ten Level 7 soldiers, and five Level 5 Soldiers. There was nothing for the pilot who had ejected when he lost his vertical stabilizer, and the other pilot must still be in the Shadow Realm. He must not have died yet, or she didn’t get any XP for the kill or assisting with the kill. Whatever the reason, it didn’t really matter.

  Pandora's Total XP was 8,950 which put her 1,050 short of level 4. That gave her 12 attribute points to spend. She put 1 attribute into every category except Luck, which she increased by 2. Not a huge change but she didn’t need a huge change right now.

  She also had 3 skill points to spend. However, there was no explanation for skill points, and it looked like skills worked differently now. Maybe the SYSTEM wasn’t fully online yet? She guessed that was possible. There wasn’t a timer on them so she could save them, which she did. What was a little worrying was that skills didn’t seem to be following the rules she was used to. There had been a skill for everything. Now it seemed that attribute bonuses were the only thing providing bonuses to skill checks and the skill points might do something to help that but she couldn’t be sure because when she tried to focus on her skill points, nothing happened.

  Pandora was shaken out of her thoughts as emergency vehicles screamed down the highway toward Michael Carpenter's Estate. That’s fine, she needed to head to Rome anyway.

  “What do we have here boys?” A burly overweight man calls as he hops over a hedge off to her right, two other young gentlemen quick behind.

  “She is a pretty thing, could be a trap. You know them lords don’t let the pretty ones out walking all by themselves like this and she ain’t in the district working…

  “Shut it Kip, I don’t want to hear any lip from you…” The burly man starts to say as Pandora jumped into the air, transformed into an Umbral Dragon, and headed Southeast. She could put these men in their place but there’s no point. Magic was coming back into this world which would bring changes for everyone, Men and Women. Very soon, if she was right, the men who have been abusing and killing the young ladies are going to find out there are consequences for their actions. Pandora smiled as she heard the tell-tale sound of water dripping onto the pavement. They’d pissed themselves, how unoriginal.

  Pandora put the thugs out of her mind and gained altitude. She started scanning the sky and paying more attention to her surroundings. It's unsurprising when she sees a missile flying at her from the southeast. Damn, they must be able to detect her with radar or satellites. That’s fine, she activates Absorb Kinetic Energy and increases her speed to Mach 10, well outside the speed of most technological attacks. Traveling at over 7,300 miles per hour it is an easy thing to shift her course to dodge any aircraft or missiles that come after her.

  As the crow flies, Rome is just over 1,000 miles away from Scarborough. To dodge the planes and missiles she continues to increase her altitude until she soars above Europe in the early morning sky. Off to the East, she can feel the sun making its way around the edge of the world, though there is no hint of light, yet. What draws her attention is that lights everywhere are going out as various colored flares light up the sky.

  Pandora keeps her attention on the sky and the fighters that are still trying to catch her as well as a few of the missiles that have run out of fuel and started to fall toward the ground before they detonate. It’s too bad she doesn’t have something that would allow her to sense radar emissions. If she could do that this would be a lot easier. Pandora ignores the missiles and planes and flies down until she’s flying just above the ground. When she can, she slips into the Shadow Realm and reappears in the material world miles away. Pandora falls into the shadow of one mountain only to reaper behind the missile as it slams into the ground.

  As she comes over to Italy she slows down and enters a shadow near a city just west of the Rome. Flying east through the shadow realm she drops to the ground and transforms back into Michael Carpenter before he walks out of a shadow in the Colosseum. Unfortunately for Augustus Maxamillius Ceasar, Pandora has all of Michael Carpenter's memories and knows exactly where the secure headquarters is. In fact, “Micheal” makes a point to smile at each camera as he walks down one of the tunnels to a wall that looks like any other disappears into a shadow, and then reappears in an elevator shaft. Pandora drops 500 feet to the top of the elevator cab and uses her ability Absorb Kinetic Energy to absorb the impact of her fall before she steps through another shadow and appears outside of the elevator shaft in a very clean hallway.

  Michael Carpenter looks at the camera he just materialized before and then transforms into Pandora. There’s no point in hiding who she is anymore. Besides, she wants these men. The men who work in these offices know it was her. She also wanted them to know that there was nothing they could do about it.

  Pandora started walking toward Augustus's office. Michael and he had grown up together after all. They could have even been considered friends. Wasn’t it appropriate that she should want to reunite them?