I would like to thank my beta, Kuilin.

Chapter 48.

Space Travel, Part V: Power

11:04 pm, July 22nd, 1993 (Almaty time)

Half an hour ago, Severus had already duplicated several spacesuits, and one charred and dented Soyuz space capsule that was said to have brought some Soviet cosmonaut back alive. Severus had also temporarily stabilized the duplicates with a duplicated Stone. However, when Severus briefly examined those strange-looking objects, he had no idea of what all the tubes connected to the spacesuits were supposed to do, nor what each part of that space capsule were used for. Severus also guessed none of the electronics in the duplicated items could be trusted. Therefore, he also needed blueprints, instruction manuals, or something of the sorts.

When Severus was seeking some Muggle in night shift who he could Legilimens near the launching pad, instinct told him of approaching danger.

White-blue shield of Protego Vitamaxima sprang out of Severus' wand without thinking, just in time to block a red bolt of light dashing towards him. Severus felt like someone had dropped some one-ton heavy weight onto his shield, and he was barely able to diverge that weight to somewhere else. In the meanwhile, Severus tried to activate the Portkey (his left sock) to his hotel room in Kiev. Unfortunately, the Portkey couldn't be activated, which meant that the enemy had banned Portkey, probably alongside with other magical travelling methods.

Severus was so familiar with this sort of situation, that it didn't require any thought process for him to throw a wordless Echolocus toward the general direction of where the red bolt had come from. Severus hoped this spell of his own invention, that utilized echo to locate the presence of disillusioned objects, could help him determine the position of the attacker.

Severus saw the green light spiraling toward his way almost at the same time as he heard "Lagann Maxima" spoken by another wizard. The powerful Breaking Drill Hex designed to break Protego Maxima failed in its attempt to crack Severus' powerful Protego Vitamaxima, yet the blow was pretty hard. Severus suspected, if he wasn't using a shield way more powerful than regular shields, he would have lost the battle already, for his opponent obviously wielded more raw magical power than he did.

Severus' Echolocus only returned a blurred image of someone in Muggle clothing wearing a pair of weird goggles when another flash of white light dashed toward Severus. The black-haired wizard dogged this time, and sent out a "Sectumsempra" toward his enemy. Severus didn't actually expect the curse that he invented to work, it was merely a cover for an inconspicuous small pebble that he was wordlessly sending toward his enemy's shield.

The ex-Head of House Slytherin was no advocate for fair play and wizarding dueling rules, so the pebble - or as the Boy-Who-Lived had called Severus' invention, a magical grenade - contained ten different hexes, several potions, and a number of interesting Muggle chemicals. When Severus made this grenade, he had figured, if his enemy was not among the top wizards, they were probably unable to handle ten hexes at once; if he or she was a top wizard besides Voldemort, the spells and potions contained in the pebble might not penetrate the shield, but the strong acid and anesthetic gas might or might not create some problems for the enemy; however, if the enemy was Voldemort, one of the spells contained in the button was actually applied by the Boy-Who-Lived, though Voldemort might have some means to block it anyway. As a matter of fact, the idea of combining multiple charms onto the same magical object wasn't anything new - people working for the Gringotts Travel Office applied a couple dozen Portkey Charms onto Portkeys everyday so that the Portkeys could carry someone from London to New York, it just took incredible skills and precision to immobilize attacking charms, let alone different attacking charms. Severus took quite some pride on being able to stabilize the Boy-Who-Lived's Turning Stunner, and to add a dozen charms of his own. Unfortunately, neither the Boy-Who-Lived nor the Girl-Who-Revived could appreciate the level of difficulty in Severus' achievement; as for people could fully understand how great this was, he didn't want to tell Mad-Eye - just in case he needed to surprise the Auror, and the old lunatic would definitely force Severus to make multiple ones for him; currently, Severus had to temporarily content himself with Lucius' well-practised admirations and praises.

Before Severus could see whether his magical grenade had worked, he found that his opponent was no proponent for fair play, either - a heavy Muggle truck was flying fast toward Severus, apparently summoned here by a wordless Accio charm. When Severus found out, it was already too late to dodge in his human form, and he didn't think his shield could handle the blow of the truck. Severus had to change into his animagus form, and flew upward as fast as he could. The large bat was barely able to escape from the main trajectory of the truck, but some metal pipes flying out of the rear of the truck still smashed into Severus' left leg. Severus thought he had heard the sound of his bones being crushed, and his entire left side became numb.

Before roaring siren deafened the echolocation system of the large bat, echoes already told Severus that his enemy had been knocked down by the device Severus sent. The large bat dropped to the smashed truck, turned into his human form, and threw several stunning and binding hexes toward the dropped figure.

Severus crawled toward his enemy, for he knew he'd better grab that guy and Apparate to somewhere before the Muggle guards got here. Then, Severus cursed his own stupidity.

"Stella, take me ... to the enemy, then bring, b-both of us to the hotel room in Kiev." Severus breathed to his bird of fire.

Two fires later, Severus was lying on the carpet of the hotel room, with his pet phoenix Stella perching by his side, cooing comforting sounds, and crying to his completely deformed left leg.

It was then that Severus had the chance to observe his unconscious enemy. That man looked sixty-something. He had grey hair and beard, a lined face, a pronounced beer belly, and he smelt like a mixture of Vodka and puke.

-My enemy is drunk?! How powerful is he when he is not drunk?

Before examining his own injury, Severus threw several other binding hexes to the man lying besides him. Severus felt that he was extremely lucky.

Just as Severus tried to sit up to see the extent of his injury, he suddenly felt another approaching danger. The lost of blood and magical exhaustion from his previous duel had drained Severus so much that his Protego Vitamaxima was only half raised when it was smashed by a red light bolt. Some dizzy moments later, the reason for his "luck" presented himself in front of Severus.

"Well done, Sseveruss." His black-haired ancestor hissed. "This guy iss indeed a good training tool for you."

-Oh, Salazar, thank you. And, you know, you could have disabled the Muggle siren, or maybe you could apply disillusion and sound-cancelling charms around your chosen dueling ground.

Severus hissed "Thank you" as he sighed inwardly. Severus figured that he need to heal himself fast, and turn back a few hours to deal with the scene.

Salazar wasn't shy about what he did for his descendant, as he absent-mindedly continued: "In this fading age of magic, it isn't that easy to find someone who is stronger than you, but not too strong for you to handle. The power level of this guard for Baikonur Cosmodrome is just right, but he was too drunk when I found him, so I had to wake him up a bit."

-Err, thank you again?

"How did this guy gain such power if he is always so drunk?" Salazar commented absentmindedly in English, while his heart was apparently somewhere else.

Severus drank down a bottle of blood-replenishing potion, pondering on what was actually bothering Salazar, and answered at the same time: "A lot of Russians become quite alcoholic - or more alcoholic - after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This might be one."

-Just as what Tobias Snape did after the mill that he had worked for ten years filed bankruptcy, and there was no need for an engineer specialized the textile industry anywhere in UK.

"Hmm." Salazar scrutinized the drunken wizard besides Severus for a while, and suddenly asked, "Did the Muggless really build the huge sspace exploring ground all by themselves? Mosstly without magic?"

Severus then realized what was probably bothering Salazar for the past two days: Salazar was so shocked by Baikonur Cosmodrome that he was desperately searching for signs of magical construction for the past two days. Plus, due to his shock, Salazar might have simply forgotten about the disillusion and sound-cancelling charms for the dueling ground.

Severus felt quite some sympathy for the medieval blood-purist, and hissed: "Yess, the Muggless did thiss themsselvess."

Salazar was silent for a long time, and only the sound of Severus' healing spells and Stella's cooing could be heard.

After a while, Salazar finally began his routine procedure after subduing his enemies, such as taking liberties with their pouches.

"What is this?" Salazar pointed a pair of green goggles, "He found you when he was wearing something like this, didn't he? Although his original pair is apparently lost somewhere, let's test if he can still see you with this when you have Circaduplucem raised."

Severus decided against annoying his mentor in distraught with minor facts such as his broken left leg, concentrated his energy, and casted: "Circaduplucem."

"Oh!" Salazar exclaimed as he held the goggles near his eyes. "I can see a blurred figure from this. Maybe this is something like your, ah, your Echolocation Charm. Very interesting."

Severus cancelled the powerful disillusion spell that was draining his energy, and gasped.

-Yeah, we need to invent something new to guard against this. By the way, if this guy knew about echolocation, why didn't he guard against it? He was too drunk or something? Or does this work differently?

Salazar duplicated the goggles, and continued his search. Holding some paperwork, Salazar commented: "Ah, this guy's name is Oleg Konstantinovich Baikov. Didn't the Smirnov guy mention something about a Baikov who was considered to have the potentials to become a Comrade, if his mentor Shakhov hadn't died? If this is that Baikov, today's wizards really have a low bar for top wizards."

"Yess, that iss the name." Severus hissed, a sense of pride rising in his heart: Merlin, I have just defeated someone who has been considered a possible future Comrade eleven years ago, which means…

"Thank you." Severus hissed to his ancestor and mentor with all his sincerity.

Salazar waved his hand, a hint of loss on his face, "Just let me continue my search."

Salazar didn't show any enjoyment towards Severus' compliments and gratitudes as he usually did, and Severus could understand why: Just as I am climbing the power ladders to become a lord like Albus, or even a lord like Salazar, Salazar is also climbing the ladders to become someone like Merlin. In the past two days, maybe he has found another power ladder, which is potentially more powerful and dangerous than the magic wielded by Merlin himself, which is Muggle technology.

Severus looked at the most powerful wizard in the world, and felt a huge wave of loss washed through him as well: The idol for all Slytherins for the past one thousand years may be able to build something like Hogwarts by himself, the most legendary wizard in history sacrificed his Life and Time to raise the Most Ancient Hall, yet none of them could construct Baikonur Cosmodrome by themselves.

After a while, Severus finally commented in English: "Maybe we can figure out how to make the Stone, or the Mirror."

Salazar bitterly smiled.