El-Ahrairah 4.8
January 14th, 2023
I held out my phone, eager to write some notes on my interviewee, who I had found lurking near a trash bin. A kricketune was a strange creature in real life, about three feet high with an elongated red bipedal body, long wings and delicate scythes for hands, with thick furry feelers resembling a mustache, massive gray eyes staring back at me, where I could see a hint of their former compound nature. Many bug types had developed plenoptic eyes, essentially an array of compound lenses placed atop a simple eye, allowing for the best of both worlds.
“So, I have questions.” I leaned back a bit as the kricketune just stared. “I haven’t gotten many opportunities to converse with bug types like yourself. How does your body work? I’ve read that for larger Bugs, you’ve developed a complex air-filled tracheal system intertwined with the fluid-filled cardiovascular system of blood, actively pumping oxygen, can you confirm that?” I pointed my phone in his direction.
He swept his feelers with his scythes, movements shifting robotically. “We uhh, I have holes near my head, air goes in… then out my lower thorax?” He sounded confused but he had spirit, good, good.
“So that would be a yes, large Bugs breathe through is generally what I’ve heard,” I nodded to myself. “I know you also have a megafaunal exoskeleton, where I come from, the largest possible arthropods are maybe your size. They scale up fine but can’t shed without having their organs collapse.”
“What?” His head antenna slid over his eyes in an insectile blink.
“Mhmm. Largest they ever got was maybe a hundred pounds. Do you have plates with interstices filled with an intermediary material like collagen as in sea urchins? Or have you broken up your exoskeleton into sclerites which lock together and can be regrown one at a time without sacrificing structural integrity? Do you lose strength when muscle anchored areas lose sclerites or are those made of larger dead structures?”
He looked down. “I shed them one at a time…” He muttered with a loud whistle.
I nodded, offering a smile. “Good, my other idea was an exoskeleton that grows by dissolution and re-deposition as in endoskeletal beings like myself. How about your joints? I heard some interesting adaptations there, accordion joints?”
“We uhh… have like a bunch of old hard parts when we were small things, trapped in gooey joint stuff that sort of locks together?” I nodded, following along with his explanation. “Then we inflate it with fluid,” he demonstrated as he straightened his arm, which shifted in any direction. “Then we pull our quad muscles, then we pump it out and it sticks together again.” I narrowed my eyes as I noted how thin scales locked together again. It was a very specific motion, jerk up, stop, jerk down, stop, repeat. Sort of like a construction robot.
“Interesting, I doubt you know how your blood works, though I’ve read up on papers that you use hemocyanin, copper based instead of iron, which is roughly one fourth as efficient as hemoglobin binds oxygen cooperatively. But your clade has convergently evolved cooperative binding, forming a ring of six molecules to up their efficiency to be comparable with vertebrates. Some species I know can form chains up to 660 molecules long to deliver massive bursts of oxygen.”
He was silent, and I nodded to myself. “Thank you for answering my questions, that’s just the basic stuff I was curious about. Anything more specific would get a bit too invasive.” I bowed my head to Kricketune, and turned on a dime to march away with some new information.
Yep.
Totally normal.
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I rubbed my eyes, feeling a tad embarrassed I had been so pushy on a complete stranger of a Bug. But being able to understand pokémon was a gift of information and data to gather and learn about when it came to their anatomy, culture and physiology. The mind-structure of the bug-type was alien, arranged in strange patterns and following an order and pathway that wasn’t quite human.
Their… culture was distinct in structure, often communicating through both aura-infused sound and a complex suite of pheromones and chemical signals, their senses were different, being able to taste through their skin or smell through their antenna. They were ordered little beings, operating on far deeper instincts, and often worked in groups, using more… collective intelligence to survive and thrive.
Humans were their superior of course when it came to cultural intelligence and technology creation, it was a difference in mental structure. Humans were born to make tools, it was ingrained into the deepest aspects of our psyche. We weren’t smarter, just different, our focus turned to another direction.
It had been a few days since the incident with Akari’s father, who hadn't come back but he had left a note apologizing for his actions, and had gotten back on his medication, and was back to seeing his therapist after his lapse. He had left something for Akari, and she had been… quiet.
Akari…
After the night we had shared the same bed, I had felt… different. Something about sleeping so close with another living being had triggered other needs, ones I had somewhat buried under stress and work. It made me wonder how out of it had I been the past few months, or if I was suppressing some things subconsciously.
Now I caught myself staring way more, my brain overworking itself, wondering how Mirko’s furry hands would feel on my skin, or how my teeth would click on Jericho’s armored skin. And don’t get me started on how humans like Akari made me feel.
It was goddamn weird, until I thought about the fact I was going through a second
puberty for my transition and had been given my first brush with deep, intimate skinship for the first time in ever. There was also the fact that an important factor in how I became attached or attracted to people was building strong emotional bonds with people. Hell, one of my first not straight crushes was on a friend who got me as a person, and that hit me with strong admiration and totally platonic feelings for the guy that went unrequited.
So a combination of hormones, the touch starvation I didn’t know I had alleviated, and my general way of being… was a bad combination when it came to my own drives. So I had been focused on distractions by interviewing any pokémon in my path of chaos.
I slapped my cheeks with a low groan. “Keep it together.” We had only gotten around two weeks of aura training, and I didn’t need distractions from my stupid ass. Though to be fair two weeks had led to some crazy progress from where I had started with only semi-controlled aura manipulation.
I stepped into the garden clearing in Aterui’s backyard.
“Hmm.” I stood up straight at Aterui’s voice, his expression screamed amusement, and I crossed my arms over my chest with red dusting my face. “Brandy, you’ve taken quite well to my training, I want you to show me how far you’ve come.”
I flinched. “I don’t have to fight you right?” I begged and he laughed, clapping his hands on his knees.
“No. Gods no, not yet at least. Two weeks is enough time to push yourself to the level of using aura to affect the environment, you’ve merely developed sufficient discipline to use your own energy without needing constant vigil and surveillance. Your reserves are compact, but well controlled, but those reserves will grow as you master your aura and the bond grows. I expect you to practice energy control with each and every one of your trained pokémon, to learn from the source… It is the most powerful method.”
“So you want me to demonstrate expelling aura?” I asked, fairly certain of the answer. That shit was way harder than merely manipulating it inside my body or sensing it. It was like trying to cup water in your hands, keeping it from spilling between your fingers.
“I do.” He crossed his arms with a firm expression written on his face, and I took a deep breath, breathing in the energies to the best of my abilities. “Now show me.”
I nodded, and bent the energies within my body, shifting the pattern, pulling at the stately silver energies, which blended together seamlessly. The energy pressed outward not into a true move, simply a silent barely visible shine of silver aura, normalcy embedded into the spiritual and cognitive and edging into the material.
Normal energy was easy, so many possible arrangements of energy, able to be etched into the fabric of reality. It was an odd phenomenon, a true Move can be considered something like a metaphysical foundation, a formula engraved into the World. Once you invent it, once you spread it far enough, it becomes embedded into the World and spreads without your own input. It’s not an instant process of course, it can take years of move tutors passing it on or TMs being sold in mass before it becomes a system of it’s own.
I let the energy flow, and swapped to the dense flow of poison, which singed against the air in deepest darkest violet, I circled my arms, and breathed as water came next with gentle swaying motions, the push and pull of the tides, then I swapped to the energies of the faerie, pulling at the outside energies and twisting them into chaotic whirls, blending them with my own, and finally reached out to fire which shimmered along my hands for a brief instant before I shut it off.
I breathed out, and Aterui gave me a meaningful glance, he looked impressed?
“Well done, though you may have overdone it.” I leaned back at his wiry grin. “Even Akari has trouble with pulling on the patterns and ways of being of the Elements.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
I blinked. “Really? I don’t think I’m that impressive am I?”
“Most trainers can channel the same energies of their own pokémon through the bond quite easily, it is using that energy for themselves that is often difficult for most. Even Akari has an affinity towards Fire and Earth, Fairy and Dragon.”
“I understand Fairy because of her time around Azazel but…”
Why was his grin so wide? “Have you ever wondered why Azazel deigned to have my granddaughter under his watch, with his centuries of life watching over our people? He gave you the answer.”
My distant kin.
“You’re related to Azazel? How?” The guy was the size of a three story building, it was anatomically—
“It was actually his son that joined our lines together, and of course faeries can lie to reality itself, it is not difficult for them. That is not where the difficulties start, his son joined with the daughter of his oldest enemy and then oldest friend, that child of his and a woman who appeared in the heart of a dragon’s den.”
I remembered the stories they had of Dragons, appearing to mortals as humans.
I choked. “Dragon, you know your ancestors descended from Dragons?” I wasn’t too skeptical, this world was full of magic and wonders. I remembered that spell that could turn man to monster, so the reverse should be possible.
“It happens, pokémon… kamuy are powerful creatures, Dragons and Fey are some of the strangest and strongest.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. “My own mother was a dragon-child, Akari is only three generations removed from that legacy of Other within our blood and soul.” His fingernails clicked together and I swallowed as I noted they were as sharp as could be, more like flexing claws.
Oh.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked wearily, looking at him like the mad dragon he apparently was if in soul and not in flesh.
“Much.” He replied. “I am simply giving you answers, and advice on my granddaughter, she knows what she is, but she has not accepted it. Her bloodline is of Dragon and Fey and their mentalities can be intense.”
“How so?”
His inner fire flared out, and it was like a beacon of warmth, and I felt drawn to him, it was like power, like something I could have if I just followed him— no.
I stepped back with a glare and he smirked. “Dragons and fire and lightning are kin, Brandy. And Dragons are thieves, little Faller. Of lives. Of gold. Of hearts. My own heart wishes to take you into my clan, to forge you into someone greater. But I am human enough to know that is not my decision to make. Faeries, they are motion and life and summer and spring, their love is the love of the mad, their devotion that of the dreamer. But you are what you are, you simply wish to understand. That will be enough.”
“You want me to just be myself?” I asked in disbelief.
“My granddaughter cares for you, do you question her judgment, or mine?”
I clicked my mouth shut.
Oh.
I was so fucked.
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I leaned against Akari once again as our new pidgeot transport flew across the skies, air shifting and distorting around her wings. She was going to take us directly towards a town a few miles outside the bounds of Taisen, which had a sizable landing spot for flying transportation.
“You’re a strange human. Being afraid of heights is going to be a problem.” I rolled my eyes at Pidgeot as I held Akari in a death grip and avoided the instinct to look down and see what lies underneath us. A thousand feet of air, and a ten second fall to the Earth below.
“I wish I had gotten more time to document things about your home, I didn’t get as in-depth into your culture as I could have.” It was a disappointment, personally. It was a foreign culture, and I would have liked to know more about it.
Akari cleared her throat. “I could… tell you things, grandfather left me a number of new texts, including instructions on moves, and some legends he’s written down for the yukar and other stories.”
“Instructions?” I asked.
“Illustrations, a lot of moves require katas, forms of sorts,” Akari explained, speaking over the wind as we flew at great speed over the landscape. “Using aura in combat isn’t far off from being a martial art, both internal and external. At least for the Shirogane style. I’m sure you want to learn magic too.”
“Alchemy is one I find intriguing.” I clarified, shrugging my shoulders while keeping my eyes shut and my face pressed into the small of Akari’s back. “I wonder if your grandfather packed anything like that?”
Akari’s aura pulsed with uncertainty. “He might have? He packed many texts so it’s really hard to say.”
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see then.” I said with an awkward tilt of my lips.
“Hmm.”
We spent the rest of the flight in an oddly comfortable silence as Pidgeot flew across the great blue sky.
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January 15th, 2023.
I was dreaming again.
I didn’t have a body, I didn’t have four limbs, or eyes, or ears or noses or even skin, instead I was simply an ever-shifting sphere of rainbow light. Endless eddies of countless energies twirling around a great vast core of void, of something greater.
Everything is connected.
Void was the bind and the breach, the All and None, the gap between and the power that binds it all together. It was an energy that had no place in this universe, a form of force native to a higher, greater reality.
That heart of true void bound everything together within that sphere that was my personal boundary. That tightly compacted light rolled around the surface, the dark reds and orange of Fire, the light cerise psychic essence of Dream, and the twisting impossible shades of pink Glamour and black Silence, and the push and pull of Water and the balanced pillars of Stone and Earth, and the light blue whispers of Air dancing with all the storms and winds of the sky.
It was at least eighteen distinct shades and countless combinations, it was countless forces vying with each other, but they weren’t yet given Form, given Purpose, by a bridge from a low reality to a high reality.
I was being tossed like a marble across endless pathways and gates carved into the Nothing, like an acorn falling off its tree, seeing glimpses of those great trees and worlds.
Oh. I remember this.
I could see the world trees rising from the sea of quanta, The World of Trophies.
I looked back to see my own world tree… it was bleeding, a deep rent torn into What Is, and I could see an infinite lens of possibilities, worlds splitting at the moment I was torn out of reality, one path, one decision splitting into hundreds, thousands, millions, dwelling within that great encompassing ocean of infinite depth.
For some reason my mind conjured up the image of the highest depths of a Spirit World, a place of purest ideals, deeper and darker, and thinner and brighter, which changed from world to world, the Chaos being given Form by the laws of nature.
I must have passed through dozens of collective… clusters of related realities, if my universe was a sun, its multiverse was a galaxy and these were other galaxies nestled within a realm of higher, greater dimensions.
One realm’s Between was that of primeval matter, the Fade shaped by a Maker into the physical world and all beings within it, populated with the spirits that were its children, with emerald seas of lyrium (?) and wells of souls.
The next Between held a world of bugs and gods and soul, the material world held within the embrace of the highest reaches of the Godrealms, and I saw a distant gray world tidally locked to its star, and in the darkness Void was given shape, devouring the fiery heart of the world, and from a thin livable strip came Life, higher beings, rapid evolution fueled by the dreams of the life deities.
Then came Dream and Mind and Nightmare, in that realm of gods, near the edge of where I had met the Blinding One.
I saw that creature, that Higher Being shielding me from primeval beings of Light and Dark. Eyes upon eyes, wings upon wings, wheels within wheels, Lord of Light and Lord of Dark, peers and kin of the Original One.
I blinked, were those… battlegrounds within the void, an entire nexus universe connecting multiple multiverses? Why did that sound familiar?
If one place I thought fiction was real… how many more did that apply to?
I didn’t like that lucid thought at all, and swallowed the primal fear threatening to swallow my mind in the midst of it all. I floated in that great and terrible void, wrapped within the obsidian limbs of a fallen god, staring into a visage of light within shadow, a prism reflecting the infinite energies of life.
I could see the path burned into the void, ripping the fabric of realities for light years, pulling things and people out from their worlds including mine and those parallel to it, living only by the grace of beings keeping the Eternity Gate from fracturing the cosmos, beings like Necrozoma.
These words are for you alone.
Beyond this point you enter the land of King and Creator.
As you step across this threshold, focus your soul so you may live.
Walk down the path walked a thousand times before, and Survive.
The dream collapsed.
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I woke with a silent groan, my entire body feeling cold and hot at the same time, a paradoxical feeling that forced me to roll onto my face so I could scream into the pillow of my hotel bed. We needed a quick place to stay.
More glimpses of what I had seen in my travels, those worlds, I knew them. They were as unreal as this world had been for me, but they were real weren’t they?
Was it my aura that was making my Connection to that place stronger? Or had my encounter with a Lunala really broken down all the barriers my mind had set up to defend myself from madness?
At the least, I seemed to have built a natural resistance so I wasn’t going to crack. Probably.
But the question then was why my dreams of that place were growing stronger, why now, why not any other time, any other place? There was just something wrong with all of this, my paranoid looking for patterns in the memories.
I had a bad feeling this was all going to add up to something truly terrible.