My Shard Bearer System - Elias's Legacy
Chapter 157: Ikona’s POV

Chapter 157: Ikona’s POV

She tried a smile, but it didn’t hold. It thinned out halfway, worn around the edges. Her eyes didn’t lift. They stayed on the hole in the floor, on the space her Ikona would have to fly through.

Kikaru’s voice broke the pause. Sharp, immediate.

"This better work," she muttered, arms crossed tight against her chest. Her Ikona glowed low beside her, like it didn’t like the plan any more than she did.

"No one’s forcing you," Elias said, without turning.

"Yeah," Tidwell added, stepping forward and flicking his knife once in the low light. "But she’s not wrong. This whole rat hole’s a gamble."

He didn’t say it with the same edge as before. His voice was lower now. Not angry, just spent.

Paul didn’t move, but his eyes followed the path to the tunnel. He nodded once.

"It’s something," he said. "Might be all we’ve got."

Junjo lingered by the wall, hands still clenched tight. He hadn’t stopped shaking.

"What if it’s a trap?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

The room went quiet for a few seconds. No one answered him.

Wes shifted, stepping forward to break the silence. He scanned the group, then looked toward the dark crawlspace.

"We’re out of options," he said simply.

Faye stepped to the tunnel’s edge. The closer she got, the more the air changed — cooler, damper, with a faint metallic tang. Somewhere deep inside, water dripped in irregular beats, like an old system that hadn’t been touched in years.

Her Ikona settled on her shoulder. It ruffled its feathers once, then tucked in, like it knew what was coming. The shimmer along its wings pulsed — like audio feedback, faint and rhythmic.

Elias stepped back to give her room. She didn’t say anything for a moment.

Then she closed her eyes and inhaled slow.

The melody she sang wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t the kind of tune meant for crowds or shows. It sounded like something sung quietly in a locked room, half-remembered, passed down instead of written.

But the sound carried.

Her Ikona’s feathers brightened. The light moved like it was breathing, swelling with each note. It clicked softly, then lifted off her shoulder in one smooth motion and hovered over the mouth of the tunnel.

"Go up," she said, voice strained, the last note still hanging in the air. "Find the lock. Be careful."

Her Ikona chirped once in return — light and even, no sign of doubt — and vanished inside.

Its glow disappeared after the first turn.

The tunnel narrowed fast — maybe shoulder-width in some spots, less in others. Pipes lined the walls in tight, uneven rows, some glinting with condensation, others so old they looked like they hadn’t been touched since the base was wired. The air inside clung cold and wet to the walls. Every breath would’ve tasted like dust and static.

Faye’s Ikona moved carefully, wings close to its body. Its glow caught on the damp curves of the piping — some wide and smooth, the kind used in twenty-inch main feeds, others narrow and worn, pitted with age, like eight-inch asbestos cement still lingering in the structure’s forgotten lines.

It didn’t sing outright, not at first. Just pulsed sound from its chest in short, rhythmic waves — like it was testing resonance through the walls as it climbed.

Somewhere deep in the structure, a sensor blinked to life. Then another. Red lights flared in sequence, trailing behind the Ikona like a warning system that had only just remembered how to work.

A cracked conduit sparked up ahead, and the Ikona slowed. Energy curled through the air — raw, tight arcs surging inside an exposed cable marked PP 73719. The box housing it hissed as its failsafe buzzed once, then went dark again. The Ikona banked hard to avoid the flare, wings brushing close enough to catch heat.

Cube X’s hum deepened the further it flew — less like machinery now, more like breath. Fans somewhere above shifted the airflow. Below, something larger echoed.

The Ikona glided past a control panel bolted to the wall, its face flickering in soft blue pulses — E-Box 1440110. The humming from inside it was clean but inconsistent. Faye’s Ikona hesitated there, just long enough to register the temperature shift. The air grew warmer.

A few meters ahead, the vent opened to a small drop shaft with a clear view into B Block.

The Ikona stopped moving.

Below, the lights were dim — red warning strobes cut across the concrete floor, leaving shapes half-formed. And in the center of that glow, a guard collapsed backward, hands spread. A rogue shard user stood over him, blood slick across his boots, a blade-shaped Ikona curled around his arm like a spine of steel. He wasn’t shouting. He didn’t look wild.

He looked calm. Focused. Like he’d done this before.

Then he stepped over the body and vanished down a hall.

The Ikona didn’t move for a second. Just hovered there, silent.

The hum in its core shifted. Not pain, not fear — just a hesitation. An echo of Faye’s voice from training, when she’d said she didn’t want to fight — that she only sang to stay useful.

But then the beat returned, soft and simple. Its wings flexed once.

The melody picked back up.

It turned from the vent and pushed higher.

The shaft bent twice more before it reached a narrow grate overlooking A Block’s entry corridor. The pod quarter doors sat just beyond it — massive, reinforced, layered in four steel bolts. Standard Cube X security. That lock had been red since the second explosion.

Near the panel, the access conduit blinked — E-Box 1266510 — and the soft buzz of sensor activity hummed underneath it, quiet but functional. It was powered.

The Ikona slowed as it approached. Its glow steadied. Feathers shimmered in a low, constant pulse.

Faye’s Ikona crouched inside the shaft, pressed low against the duct’s inner wall. The space was narrow — barely enough room to stretch its wings — but it had slipped through tighter gaps during training drills. Its talons rested against a crossbeam near the back of the lock assembly. From here, it had a clear view of the panel’s internal housing.

The box was standard—E-Box 1266510, based on the marking stenciled above the sensor node. The lock’s red indicator pulsed steady, no change in rhythm. The bolts behind it were still humming, four in total, powered and sealed. It hadn’t budged.