Tiny Hero Ch 7: The Reality Gateway!

Doc rubbed his hands together like he was about to unveil a magic trick. His eyes sparkled with barely contained excitement, and I had to admit, it was kinda contagious.

"Peter, my dear assistant, helper, intern... witness to genius," he said dramatically, turning knobs and flicking switches like a madman behind a game show console. "Today is the day! The day we make history!"

He handed me a pair of scratched-up goggles with one lens cracked.

"Uh, what are these for?"

"Eye protection!" he beamed. "In case the veil between worlds shatters in a cascade of quantum light. Can't have you going blind from brilliance."

I put them on without argument. One side was foggy and the other smelled like burnt cheese. Classic Doc.

I stood beside him, watching him flip more switches with reckless enthusiasm. Wires dangled like vines from the machine, some of them taped together with what suspiciously looked like chewing gum. I mean, I wasn't a scientist or anything, but I had a feeling the gum wasn't regulation.

Still, part of me hoped it would work. As insane as the machine looked, Doc had poured everything into it. Late nights, junkyard dives, even that one time he tried to sell plasma three times in a week and fainted into a bush.

The arch hummed. A low, rising thrum pulsed in the air. Lights blinked in rapid patterns. The glyphs along the frame began to glow, softly at first, then brighter, pulsing in rhythm like a heartbeat. The space within the arch shimmered, like heat rising off asphalt.

I held my breath.

This was it. This was actually it.

Doc reached for the big red button—he always had a big red button—and slammed his palm on it. The machine roared, gears spinning, energy crackling.

"IT LIVES!" Doc howled, arms raised like a conductor before an orchestra. "THE REALITY GATEWAY LIVES!"

Then: a sputter. A spark. A brief, hopeful whine.

And then... darkness.

Pffft.

Smoke belched from the base of the machine, thick and black, like someone lit a tire on fire. The arch went dark. The hum stopped. Something clunked depressingly to the floor with a sad little metallic ping.

Doc stared at it. His arms dropped.

"...Or not," he muttered.

He turned away, shoulders sagging, and trudged toward the stairs.

"It was supposed to bridge the barrier," he said quietly. "Between Minari and Obelisk. A true gateway. A unifier of dimensions. A revelation."

He didn't look back. I watched him disappear upstairs, his lab coat trailing behind him like a wilted flag.

The room was quiet now, except for the faint hissing of a blown capacitor or something equally science-y and sad.

I looked back at the machine. Even with the smoke, the arch still looked impressive. And dangerous. And broken.

Still... it had almost worked. The glyphs had glowed. The shimmer had been there.

I stepped closer.

Maybe Doc had missed something. Maybe it was a stupid mistake. A crossed wire. A bad fuse. Or maybe—

—maybe it wasn't broken at all. Maybe it just needed one more push.

I took a breath and crouched beside the control panel, fingers brushing along the buttons, still warm. I wasn't a genius like Doc, but I'd been watching him work on this thing for months. I knew enough to not lick the wires, and that was a start.

Maybe, just maybe, I could find the answer.

The moment Doc trudged out of the room like a sad penguin who'd dropped his ice cream, I was left standing alone in the basement, the humming silence settling in like dust after a failed science experiment—fitting, really.

I glanced over at the archway machine. It loomed over me like some sort of alien artifact, cold, massive, and buzzing faintly with residual energy. I pulled off the goggles Doc had handed me earlier and rubbed the bridge of my nose.

"Bridge the barrier between Minari and Obelisk," I muttered to myself, repeating what he said. "What does that even mean? Like... spiritually? Politically? Or are we talking teleportation here?"

I sniffed the air and instantly regretted it. The inside of the machine reeked like burnt rubber and maybe wet dog. Gross. Still, curiosity overruled common sense—again—and I found myself walking closer, ducking under the arch's thick metal rim and stepping inside.

I gagged a little. "Jeez, someone needs to Febreze this thing before it makes science history."

Inside, the structure felt even bigger, like being inside the belly of a beast that hadn't brushed its teeth in a decade. The walls were lined with wires, blinking lights, and metal panels with labels in Doc's barely legible handwriting: "Do Not Pull," "Try This Later," "Not For Snacks."

"Yeah. Totally legit," I said out loud, because talking to myself was apparently part of the deal now.

I crouched near a panel where some wires snaked around like metallic spaghetti. I studied machinery and tech in school, sure, but this? This was something else. It was like someone took a college engineering course, a fantasy novel, and a microwave, and blended them into one Frankenstein monstrosity.

Still, I could follow some of the logic. Circuit flow, power lines, energy converters—it wasn't completely alien. That gave me a weird sense of pride.

I kept looking and—there it was. In the far back corner of the arch, barely visible through a mess of tangled wires and soot, a loose connection. The copper ends sparkled slightly, frayed like a broken nerve.

I grinned. "Well hey there, little guy. You look important."

Climbing into the cramped space like some greasy goblin, I pinched the wire ends together and gave it a twist, reconnecting it to the terminal.

Instantly, a low hum reverberated through the metal.

Then a click.

Then a spark.

"Oh no," I whispered, my eyes darting around as the lights on the machine flickered to life one by one in a domino effect. The arch glowed, a faint bluish light running like veins through its surface. Energy began to pulse, slowly at first, then rapidly.

Panic climbed up my spine.

"I gotta get outta here!"

I turned and sprinted toward the edge of the machine, but just as my foot hit the platform, a crackling sound exploded behind me. I didn't even get the chance to finish a good scream before a jolt of light blue energy surged through my back like lightning—and everything went white.

It wasn't pain, not at first. More like static filling my brain, my limbs, my everything. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't blink. Couldn't even scream. I was suspended in light and noise and the overwhelming smell of fried plastic.

Then—darkness.

Just... nothing.