Another year passed.
By now, I had learned to feel it before the system ever announced it—the subtle tightening of probability, the sense that reality was about to be nudged sideways again. Every summoning carried that feeling. A held breath. A pause before the universe decided whether to be kind or cruel.
This time?
It was kind.
SCP-038.
An ordinary-looking tree, unremarkable at a glance, standing somewhere in the world as if it belonged there. Brown bark. Green leaves. Roots sunk into soil like any other plant.
And yet it was one of the most valuable anomalies we had ever encountered.
The moment the designation appeared, my thoughts were already racing. Cloning. Perfect replication. Instantaneous transfer of structure and composition. Maturation within minutes. No degradation. No randomness.
Not fruit.
Anything.
Weapons. Tools. Artifacts. Materials. Even anomalous objects, provided the interaction was controlled.
The implications were so vast that for a rare moment, even I felt a flicker of restraint.
The Watcher didn't waste a second.
Darius deployed his network immediately—spies embedded across empires, trade routes, religious orders, scholarly circles, and remote regions. Reports flowed in like blood through veins. Any unusual tree. Any rumor of objects duplicating. Any unexplained abundance.
I coordinated from the center, overlaying intelligence maps with probability models, narrowing down locations where such an anomaly could plausibly remain unnoticed yet undisturbed.
Within weeks, we found it.
The tree stood in a secluded region, isolated enough to avoid casual discovery, yet close enough to human movement that its eventual exposure would have been inevitable. A miracle that had somehow not yet been abused.
We moved fast.
Mobile Task Forces established a perimeter overnight. The site was quarantined, disguised as sacred land under royal protection—one of Gilgamesh's diplomatic fronts handled that effortlessly. Ashoka scrubbed any rumors. Julius ensured no one crossed the cordon alive without authorization.
I arrived shortly after containment protocols were established.
Standing before SCP-038, I felt something close to reverence.
It didn't radiate menace. No hostile aura. No whispering voices. No predatory intent. It simply was. A function embedded into nature that should not exist.
Doctor Bright circled it slowly, hands behind his back.
"This," he said softly, "is how civilizations break."
"Yes," I replied. "Or survive."
We tested carefully.
Very carefully.
A D‑Class operative was instructed to press a simple iron tool against the bark. The moment contact was made, a second, identical tool emerged from the opposite side of the trunk, sliding free as if grown rather than created.
Perfect down to molecular structure.
Next, copper wire. Then steel ingots. Then vibranium.
The vibranium test made everyone tense.
The tree accepted it.
The clone emerged flawless.
Bright let out a low whistle. "That's… yeah. That's a problem."
"It's a solution," I corrected. "If controlled."
We did not test living beings.
Not yet. Possibly not ever.
Some lines exist for a reason, even when you can cross them.
Instead, we focused on infrastructure. Materials. Non-sentient objects. Anomalous items with carefully monitored properties. The tree replicated them faithfully, but interestingly—it did not amplify their anomalous effects. No runaway feedback. No exponential instability.
It was replication, not escalation.
That mattered.
We relocated SCP-038 to a Foundation-controlled environment, replanting it within a specially constructed containment grove reinforced with vibranium-laced supports and layered magical suppression fields. Not to restrain it—but to ensure we were restrained.
Access was restricted to O5 authorization only.
Because SCP-038 was not dangerous in the way monsters were.
It was dangerous in the way power is.
With it, scarcity became optional.
Vibranium production scaled safely. Replacement parts for containment systems became trivial. Experimental devices could be cloned rather than rebuilt. Even SCP-294 benefited—we could duplicate safe containers, standardized cups, and controlled-output mechanisms without manufacturing bottlenecks.
The Foundation leapt forward again.
And through it all, the system remained silent—almost approving.
I couldn't help but notice the pattern.
First, survivability.Then infrastructure.Then weapons.Then materials.Then replication.
The God behind the system wasn't being random.
He was arming us.
"Enjoy it," Bright said one evening as we finalized SCP-038's documentation. "The nice ones never last."
"I know," I replied calmly. "That's why we're squeezing every advantage out of this phase."
I stood before the observation window, watching the tree sway gently in artificial light. A miracle pretending to be mundane. A gift that could change the trajectory of history if mishandled.
But it was in our hands now.
And we were not careless.
Somewhere in the system interface, the counter ticked onward toward the next summoning. I could already feel it—something heavier waiting beyond the horizon. Something that wouldn't quietly stand in a garden or hum like a coffee machine.
Nightmares would come.
Gods would bleed.
Worlds would shake.
But for now?
The universe was giving us tools.
And I intended to use every single one—so that when the terrifying SCPs finally arrived, they would find a Foundation that was no longer scrambling to survive…
…but fully prepared to win.