3.

Tony.

Another Saturday.

X and I met up at the stadium opposite his hostel, today marked the beginning of my training. He opened a portal quickly and we entered. I was surprised, it didn’t take him as much time as before. Entering the portal, I looked around. The ground was rocky and barren, and was flat as far as the eye can see. There is one star. But I was pretty sure it was not the sun. It had an eerie blue glow. “Where are we?” I ask as X walks through the portal and closes it.

“This is one of my pocket dimensions, Arrath. You’ll be training here, for now. That way no-one can sense your energy when you release it” He waved his hand and the I felt the mark on my chest disappear. The backlash was tremendous. I fell to my knees as the energy coursed through me. The ground cracked and the wind around me whipped up in a frenzy. I coughed and blood came up. “As I thought, humans can’t handle such magical pressure” He placed the rune on me again and I fall to the ground, pain wracking my entire body.

“Sorry man. Its going to be worse than this though” he places another sigil on me, and I feel the pain subsiding. I stand up slowly. “That was very painful, give me a warning next time!” I yelled. “Okay, okay” he said , still grinning. “Bastard, anyway what are we going to do about this? I can’t use the shard without feeling this pain” I say, rubbing the back of my neck.

“I have a solution for that...” he says and starts walking towards me. Three sigils appear simultaneously in front of me, entering my chest. I feel dizzy and start falling, but then I’m awake again. “What did you...” I stop immediately as I see my body on the floor. Dead.” Don’t freak out, you’re just an astral projection, not dead.” He kneels over my motionless body and murmurs something. My body is covered in a white glow, and starts floating. I hover around X, trying to bump his head with my hands. “Idiot! I told you to warn me!” X walks around my body, examining it. “But it didn’t hurt, right?”

“So? I was scared that I was actually dead!” X burst into laughter, placing his hands on his knees. Don’t worry, I won’t do it again.” I finally calm down after unsuccessfully trying to pummel X. “What are you doing to my body?” I ask, hovering around my body. Humans have zero affinity for magic. The shard will keep trying to look for an outlet, which you don’t have. I’m creating those outlets by rewriting your genetic code, mutating you so you can harness shard energy.

I fold my arms and look at him, completely lost. He sighs and turns to face me. “ Long ago, there was a race of extra dimensional beings. We call them the Ancients. They existed in a plane above the void, the four dimensional space, long before our multiverse was created. The most powerful Ancient, Fos, decided to create life out of the void. His brothers, Zoi and Ente assisted him in merging with the void and completely reforming it into the Infinite realities we have. Each reality is just a splinter off the main branch. Fos being an omniscient being, was able to perceive never-ending variations of his original universe, resulting in the multiverse we have now. “How is this relevant?” I float around him. Astral projection had its perks.

“Shut up, I’m getting to the good part. As I was saying, after the creation of the multiverse, Fos became unaware of anything as he was completely bonded to the void. Zoi, the second brother saw a chance to siphon the power off Fos slowly, gradually destroying his creation and him, and then rebuilding it as he saw fit. Of course, his kind disagreed and tried to fight him. They mostly died, until Ente had to absorb his entire race, create an abyss around the multiverse, and banish Zoi beyond it. This sacrifice killed his people and greatly diminished his power. The fifth world, as we called it, was now a raging storm of unused extradimensional energy. The energy ebbed and flowed into our new multiverse, forming what the early mages called ‘the lifeblood'. As more of the energy poured into our world, more and more changes were seen, the first primordials rose, abstract entities were created by imaginative power harnessing the lifeblood, the original beings of the multiverse were not left out, they showed affinity for this strange energy, learning about it and eventually using it in every aspect of life, eventually calling it magic. Well, almost all, as this specific race, humans were left out of the frenzy. It’s strange, really. Humans were completely left out. They were allowed to evolve, unaffected by the lifeblood. It was called the cocoon, as it had an invisible shell that kept the lifeblood from ever reaching them. Its one of the greatest mysteries of the multiverse. Scores of creatures travelled there over the times, building up what your race has as myths and legends. But as time passed, they left, again leaving the earth in seclusion. It was also weird that no other form of life has ever been recorded within the 900 million light-years, as if someone wanted you all to think you were really alone. Any life in the observable universe wasn’t always there, save for the earth and the ones that settled on the cocoon, do well to stay hidden. Anyways, I digress. Zoi watched with growing interest as the Aeons passed, and he decided to punish his brother Ente, by completely overrunning the multiverse with chaos, his specialty, and driving every being mad, as he saw madness better than destruction. In fear of Zoi ever breaching the void, Ente had to split his being across all realities, creating a shard in each universe, and then creating a seal to hold him off. The shards are made from Ente's being, one that could harness the fifth dimensional energy directly. One of those shards is now bonded to your soul, meaning you can use the energy better than any race, but as you’re human, you’d die. So I have to reform your body for maximum shard usage. Happy?”

“Wait, if I’m using a shard, doesn’t that mean that the seal is broken?”

“Not really, it’s just weakened, but once a shard is removed, that universe is left defenceless against the Harbingers. That’s why they attacked this universe’s gods. After that would’ve been this universe. Just as they did mine.”

I shudder at the thought of thousands of those things falling from the sky, turning more people into things like them. I mean, there was a lot of stuff I haven’t done yet. “Alright, that should do it...” my body stopped glowing and lowered onto the ground. X removed the three sigils he placed earlier on my body, and I feel myself pulled into my body. I open my eyes and X helps me up. “ How do you feel now?”, he asks as he removes the sigil. I flinch, expecting the pain again, but... nothing. I feel perfect, even better than perfect, it’s like every muscle in my body has been honed to perfection. I raise my shirt and look under. “Abs? Really?”

“You’re too lazy to get them yourself, you’re welcome.” He gets serious now. “Enough talk, it’s time to work. Close your eyes.” I close my eyes, not really sure of what to expect. Normally, right now, I’d be with some girl in a restaurant, after that, we would go to her lodge and the rest would be history. But here I am, learning magic. “ Imagine something simple, like a stick, form the image in your mind.” The image is relatively easy to form, so I decide to do more, the stick becomes sharper, takes on a hilt and becomes a katana. “I got it, what next?”

“Now, it should come naturally to you, pour your shard energy into the image in your mind.” What is that supposed to mean? I try to visualise the shard as the crystal I saw the first time, I imagine it exuding a bright blue light that seeped into the katana. Nothing. “Um, X? It’s not working...” I open my eyes to find out that’s not true. In front of me is a glowing blue blade, exactly the way I imagined it, except it wasn’t glowing. “Impressive, you actually got it on your first try” X holds my shoulder. “It’s called a thought construct, imagination given form by your shard energy. Pretty cool right?”

“Yeah, I thought I’d have to chant and create pretty little sigils though” He scoffs “I’m pretty sure you don’t want to spend a year or two learning every entire sigil in the history of magic.” I grab the glowing sword and swing it around. “ How do you do it then?” I lunge at X with my sword held above my head. “Oh, it’s just this thing at the back of my neck... It’s called the Index, it contains knowledge of all elven spells, and how to use them.” He says as he sidesteps me, kicking me into the ground.

“Ugh, go easy will ya?” My sword flickers and disappears. “Ah fuck, I wanted to keep it as a souvenir” He helps me up again. Piece of advice? Don’t limit yourself to the just weapons, remember, your body can now harness the shard energy, so don’t hold back. Don’t hold back huh? I close my eyes and concentrate the shard’s energy inward. I feel my body getting hotter, like I’m burning up. The wind around me forms a large dust devil as my body starts glowing blue.

“Good, you’ve learnt transformation, let’s see what you can do” I feel powerful, every muscle in my body brimming with energy. I run toward X at lighting speed, cracking the ground as I move. I can see everything, my eyesight can pick up a....man? I stop moving abruptly and look into the far distance. Sure enough, there was a man there, looking menacingly at both of us. “X?” He turns around and chuckles. “You found me, that was fast.” He looked around and shouted, “No need to keep hiding, show yourselves!” Silence. Then several other dark figures materialised out of thin air. “Ah, the Gentry, was wondering when you’d show up. Was killing the two demons you sent not enough?”

I look around and see that we are completely surrounded by six...no...seven human looking creatures. They all wore black cloaks, probably concealing weapons. The leader was also cloaked, but his eyes shone a sickly yellow. “Xassin, so good to see you, it’s been what? Twenty years?” His tone sounded anything but welcoming. “You’ve come to kill me then?” X was serious now, drawing his sword and taking a stance. “Leave him out of this, Ritsur” The man laughed, more of a breathless wheeze than a laugh. “The Great Arch-mage Xassin, getting soft?” He snaps his fingers and the cloaked men surround me now, circling slowly. X's hair turns back to it’s glowing white form. His eyes blaze like a white flame. “Don’t try me, Ritsur,” He laughs again and looks at X. “You seem to forget you don’t have a shard. You’re less than a threat to me.” He holds up his weapon, a sickle and smiles. “ If you want to save him, defeat me”

“Hey X?” I crack my fingers and look at him. He cocks his head toward me, “Yeah?”

“We’re still training right?”

“Yeah, so?”

“I can use them to learn more right? You know, explore?” I grin wickedly. He looks lost for a second, but then grins back, “ Don’t kill them all, we need to do target practice” The Gentry attackers close in on me, revealing their weapons. Scythes. Of course, scythes. Why not? I opened my palms and a baseball bat appeared, along with a ball, both giving off their blue glow. “This should be fun...” I say as I swing the bat at the ball, putting in my strength. The ball rockets towards the first mage, and he catches it easily. “Boy, I must say I’m disappointed. Is that all you could come up with? At least give me a fight.” He throws the ball away, motioning towards his men to attack. They rush at me, weapons ready. “You want a fight huh? Well, don’t chicken out later.” Another ball appears in my hand and I use my bat to hit it again, sending it towards them. The first attacker slices the ball in half as it reaches him. The ball immediately explodes, dazing the first mage. I take advantage of this and boost my speed, reaching the first mage immediately and bringing the bat down on his head. His body crumples to the ground.

“Fight enough for you?” I place the bat on my shoulder and stare at the rest. They quickly retreat and form a circle around me. A large sigil appears under my feet, and suddenly I can’t move. The second in command is above me, a sigil ready in his hand. Four other sigils appear in the sky above me, all aimed at me. “Mahraz Zut'ra!” Beams of energy are fired at me from the sigils. “That’s bad, I can’t move” I look at the energy blasts heading towards me. “In that case...” I let my shard energy pour out, like a maelstrom. Then it solidifies, forming a protective dome. “Whoa, I didn’t think that would actually work.” The beams hit the dome, relentlessly trying to get past it. “That won’t hold forever...I need to get rid of this thing” A spear appears in my hand. “Well, it wouldn’t hurt to try...” I let go of the spear and will it to float. It does.

“Ha!, It works!” I create more spears mid-air and aim them at the mages surrounding me. “Aim, set, fire” The spears fire at lighting speed, causing sonic booms. Most of the mages can’t dodge, so the spears impale them. The ones that do dodge are injured by the explosion of the spears. The sigil deactivates and I make quick work of them with my bat. The second in command floats down and looks around at all his downed men. “Impressive, you managed to hold off a squadron of mages, and even win. I have underestimated you. I won’t make that mistake again.” He catches the spear I fire from behind him and the explosion seems to do nothing to him.

The wind around him suddenly picks up. Runes I didn’t notice before begin to glow on his bare chest. His eyes turn bright green.

“I’ve never fought a human before, let’s see what you have to offer, boy” I blink and he’s already in front of me. He swings his scythe at my head in one swift motion. I’m barely able to block by reinforcing my hand with a shield. The impact breaks my shield and hurls me away. “What the...” I’m hardly finish before I notice him swinging his scythe at me again. I quickly create another dome, but that is shattered again.

I’m pushed back. I immediately turn blue, my shard energy released. He is nowhere to be seen. But then, a kick from behind sends me flying. Another kick hits me before I can reach the ground. How is he so fast? 

He’s standing over me, his eyes glowing. “Disappointing. I got serious for nothing.” He raises his scythe and I notice something. His runes aren’t glowing. I create another ball, it explodes and blinds him, giving me time to move away. “You still have fight in you. That’s good” His runes glow now and he’s in front of me, kicking in my stomach. Ah, so that’s how. I close my eyes, accumulating shard energy in my fists, while in mid-air. I concentrate, knowing that he would be back soon. I notice his presence near me and block his scythe with my fist.

“Impossible! How did you...” I send him flying with an uppercut before he can finish. “I noticed your runes activate before you can use your power. I thought it was your raw speed. Turns out it’s just teleportation.” I crack my fingers and my trusty bat appears in my hand. “My turn” I turn around and catch him in mid-air with my bat, as he teleports behind me, putting all my strength into that one swing. His ribs shatter and he is flung across the field. I reach him before he can touch the ground and swing again, launching him into the sky. I jump up after him and smack him into the ground.

“That was educational.” I land and walk towards the crumpled body. He’s alive, but barely. Well, at least we have target practice. I make a large ball and put him inside. Then I run towards the original site of battle, our fight must have taken us miles away. I wondered if X was done on his end. That Ritsur guy seemed pretty strong. He made X serious after all. I hoped he was okay as I ran through the barren planet.

Don’t die, X.

I reach just in time to see X pull out his sword from Ritsur's head. His hair looks as if it’s on fire, if fire could be white. His eyes give off that menacing white glow I saw the first time. “Yo, guess you’re okay.” He turns toward me. His elvish features gradually turn human and he raises two fingers in greeting. “I could say the same to you, looks like I was right to trust you. Seems like you picked up a few tricks” He says, motioning to the orb. The orb disappears and the man falls to the ground. 

"Yeah.... and I brought back target practice..” The man stands slowly, unsure of where to hold, his ribs or his head. X immediately roundhouses him and puts a leg on his neck. “Now, Maroq, go back to M’gethir, tell him how you failed and tell him this: I’ll end anyone that you send, mark my words” He opens a portal and kicks Maroq into it, after closing it, he turns to me.

“The real deal starts now”