In one second, we were surrounded by dead bodies, hanging from trees. In the next, we were in a quaint, hand-built bedroom, constructed with the help of mother nature, who provided the builder of this quiet and deserted place with a nice little cave to make additions to. Whatever dankness or weird smell that exists in most caves had been eliminated long ago, replaced with lavender and incense. The cave opening had a cobblestone wall and a round, wooden door.
Next to me stood Sophus Doragon, whose white gi had been replaced by a bathrobe and pajama pants just as quickly as he teleported us. Right behind me was Amber, whose grey jacket, pink T-shirt, and volleyball shorts had not changed at all. When I turned around to face her, I found that she was facing away from me with her hands on her knees, doubled over, throwing up. I think it was from the disorientation of being teleported.
The room was no bigger than my dorm room. Each wall was covered floor-to-ceiling with books, many of which had worn-out spines, implying they've been flipped through a lot. I grabbed the one with the least readable title off the shelf. It was an old edition of a Librish translation of Minnetou, chief of the Epocha tribe of Midenites. The book was small, but thick, with a weak spine and loose pages that made me feel guilty for picking it up.
I turned to Sophus. “Is this…a first edition?” I asked him in disbelief.
“Yep!,” Sophus responded. “It’s a hundred and forty years old now, I think.”
“Wow”, I breathed as I flipped through the pages gingerly, gently appreciating the yellowed hue of the paper and old-fashioned font.
“Star fucking seventeen, Tate, you're such a fucking nerd,” Amber weakly tells me with a cough as she hobbled upright.
“So, Mr. Shirudo, you said you wanted to learn about Metapneuma. But how much do you know about Metaki?” He asked, bringing us back to the reason we’ve met. He sat down in a fluffy recliner and pulled the lever to kick his feet up.
I eyed the pile of Amber's vomit, which seemed to seep into the stone floor, slowly disappearing as if the ground absorbed it. I decided to abandon the lie I’d thought about telling before. “Nothing, honestly,” I said.
Sophus lowered the legrest and stood up with an urgent expression. “Then you’ve got a lot of learning to do, son! Metapneuma can only be studied by Metamartial artists!”
My face froze on an expression of wide eyes and a tightly-shut mouth.
“...So it's more than just you giving me some research materials and referring me to experts on the subject..?” I asked after a dazed second.
Sophus laughed. “Much more!” He stood up. “Let me show you something.” He walked to his bookshelf and pulled an immaculately-decorated tome from the shelf. Curling around the borders of the covers and on the top and bottom of the spine was that shiny, metallic stuff people put on books to give an air of mystic majesty to an already intrinsic design.
“In this book, the forgotten tales of Metapneuma users from before the colonization of The First Nations of Miden are recorded.” Sophus proudly displayed the cover, which had a Middish title, engraved in that same majestic fake gold.
I gasped in excitement. “Really?!” I held my hand out, beckoning for Mr. Doragon to give it to me.
Sophus opened up the book and faced the pages to me. They were completely blank. I flipped through them and saw that every page in the book was blank.
“Is this your idea of a joke?!” Amber spat. “You’re seriously making fun of how much Midenite history has been lost to the genocide committed against them?!”
Doragon closed the book and smirked. “It was written using only Metapneumatic aura,” he explained. He then put the book back where it was on the bookshelf. “Meaning you can’t read it if you're not Aligned.” He then picked up a small pouch on the coffee table and reached impossibly deep into it. Then, after getting forearm-deep into the bag, he yanked out a bean bag chair and dropped it at my feet. I plopped into it with gratitude. “The Midenite community have used methods like these and others to prevent the impatient, haughty-minded from ever learning Metapneuma.” He reached into the pouch and pulled an additional bean bag out for Amber. “You see, only those pure of heart, awakened by wisdom can wield Metapneuma.” He then sat down in his recliner and kicked the legs up with a contrastingly childish glee. “Anyone else would abuse the power, and potentially destroy the entire world!”
“Hey! That's racist!” Amber shouted. “The colonizers of this continent used to say that exact same thing to justify their genocide!”
I've never really liked that word. It implies that we're all gone. We're still very much here.
“That's very true,” Mr. Doragon answered Amber. “But the implication is different. The colonizers implied that the Midenites were somehow unfit to wield a power they cultivated themselves. What I'm implying is that I don't plan to pass the secrets of this power to just anyone. If I ever sense any corruption in your souls, I will send you away.” To emphasize his point, he pointed his finger at us warningly.
“What made you so interested in appropriating Midenite culture, anyway?” Amber asked. I nodded, seconding the question. “Were all your white boy techniques just not exotic enough for you or something?” I stopped nodding when she asked that.
Sophus laughed and steepled his fingers. “Well, I used to want to be the greatest Metafighter in history. So of course, I wanted to learn every Metafighting technique in existence.” He shrugged, smiling at the cocky youngblood he used to be. “Metapneuma, for years, was just something I'd have to get around to mastering eventually.” His face shifted to a more somber, reminiscent expression. “But learning Metapneuma makes you learn a lot about yourself. By the time I'd gotten any good at using it, I didn't want to be the best anymore. Also, by then, Star 17 had saved the world, and, well, how was I supposed to top that?”
“It took you that long just to realize that you're not the main character of the whole universe?” Amber jabbed.
“Honestly, yes. I was very privileged my entire life, and it took a lot of suffering to kill the ego my privileged lifestyle birthed.” Sophus’s light green eyes darkened as they locked with Amber's. Something in the air changed as he wiggled his mustache. It was like there was a slight breeze coming off his body. “Now, are you ready to suffer as well?”
“Oh. Well, um, n-no,” Amber stammered. “I'm actually just here for, um, emotional support.” She pointed to me. “Tater’s the one who's gotta kill his ego. Or whatever.”
“I have to lose my sense of self to train with you?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Not necessarily. How do you see yourself?”
I scratched the back of my head, trying to ponder that question. “Um…That's a really…deep question…”
“I know,” Sophus said. Now he was giving me The Look.
“I see myself as…an anthropology major who's in way over his head..?” I shrugged and laughed nervously.
Doragon’s gaze softened from intense, investigative curiosity to shock and awe. “My…goodness…” He muttered.
“I know, I know, I must be really boring and pretty stupid,” I admitted, scratching my head more and looking at the little torches dotting the walls of the room, which appeared to have dancing, smokeless, heatless flames on them, illuminating the room with a degree of warmth that only those fancy orangish light bulbs should provide.
“No, no,” He said with a chuckle. “I’m looking at your soul. It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen one so pure. Especially despite everything you’ve been through.”
“Ew, are you going through our memories?!” Amber screamed, grabbing her head and smacking it. “Get the fuck out of there, pervert!!”
“No, I’m looking at your soul. I can’t see your memories. It’s different. Anyway, you should be very proud of your soul, Tate. A strong soul is the best basis for a strong Metafighter.”
“How can you see my soul?” I asked.
“First of all, you must become Aligned,” Sophus explained. “That allows you to see auras. And only after gaining a keen eye for auras can you see the souls of Unaligned people.”
“How do I become Aligned?”
“Well…to put it simply…” Sophus heaved a deep sigh, wiggling his mustache as he did so. “I don’t know.”
“How the fuck do you not know how to Align people if you’re fucking Aligned?!” Amber asked.
“I was born Aligned. I didn’t have that same sort of ‘journey to Alignment’ a lot of other metamartial artists had. I figured out most of the fundamentals intuitively. I don’t know how to teach it to other people.” He clapped his hands and folded them next to his face, which suddenly became stricken with a frightening kind of glee. “That’s why I’m so excited to teach you, Tate! This feels like a new chapter in my life.”
“... You're gonna try to teach me…even though you don't know how to teach someone metamartial arts?!” I asked him with a raised eyebrow and a slight waver in my voice. If he was born Aligned, he probably had incredible natural strength his whole life. And if he did, then would he even know how fragile an Unaligned person’s body is?
Sophus giggled in giddy amusement. “Sure! You're here because you had no idea what you were getting into, and now, so am I!”
“Um…” Amber cleared her throat and meekly uncurled her index finger in my direction. “Can me and my friend here have a little conversation in private..?”
“Of course!” Sophus cheerfully responded before disappearing in thin air.
Amber immediately lunged at me and grabbed my shoulders, squeezing them desperately. “Tate. I wanna go home. It’s just now sinking in that my fucking phone is gone. We can’t call for help if he does anything. And he’s a fucking S-tier Metafighter. He kinda just implied he could destroy the fucking world a few minutes ago. Why don’t we just go to the nearest gas station, get a fuckton of snacks, then go to the nearest motel and smoke the rest of the weed, watch some movies, and chill?”
I started playing with the curls in my hair in contemplation. I thought about leaving Mr. Doragon my contact information, but then I remembered my phone was also destroyed. It was true that we had just met, and that I had no reason to trust this man, but there was something about him that made me want to trust him. He had a certain kind of energy to him that I think I could feel. I didn’t know how to explain this to Amber without sounding illogical, or like I’m into him.
There was also something about the fact that Metapneuma, to me, was a way for me to truly feel connected to my people. I’ve hardly even met very many Midenites, and many of them were people who were only part Midenite, and were so heavily mixed with either Librish or Higanese blood and culture that you’d never be able to tell. I’m unmistakably Midenite–caramel skin, milk chocolate curls, big, round eyes, owner of a bookcase filled with books about my people, and always dripped out in traditional garb from online merchants whose connection to the culture I can’t verify.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
In comparison, Metapneuma could connect me to my ancestors more than any article of research or clothing could do. After all, Metamartial arts is a lifestyle. And to me, connecting with my heritage is something worth adopting a new lifestyle for.
“I think…I should stay, actually.”
“WHAT?! ARE YOU FUCKING SUICIDAL?!”
“C’mon, Amber. He's not gonna kill me. He's old and probably out of practice. Plus, can't you tell how lonely he is?! He probably hasn't talked to anyone in years!”
“He talked to XIX not too long ago! That's how we figured out he was here!”
“Is that really a good example to use?? He needs someone to keep him company for a while! Isolation is really bad for you, especially at his age.”
“What has you so convinced this isn't a terrible idea?!”
Just then, I came up with a way to explain what I felt in terms Amber would understand, or at least respect.
“My ancestors. I can feel them urging me to stay with this man and learn the ways of Metapneuma.” I didn't feel too bad for not telling the exact truth–or what I thought it was then. Looking back, I wonder if my ancestors really were guiding me. It sure as hell wasn't logic guiding me.
“Really? Wow. That's…kinda awesome, actually,” Amber said with her lips turned up like she was smiling, but there was an immense sadness in her eyes.
“What's wrong?” I asked her.
Amber sighed. “I don't know…” She looked off to the side, studying a random book on the shelf. “This just feels like…it, y'know? Like we're never gonna see each other again. Even though…” She clenched her fists on her knees, squinting in an attempt to prevent her tears from leaving her eyes.
I wrapped my arms around her. I don't think she got hugged often. In general, Amber didn't really get much love growing up. In that way, we were alike. But even then, her upbringing was very different from mine. Her parents just didn't pay close enough attention to her, and even when they were present, they'd be high on weed most of the time. I can hardly imagine what it must've been like to be receiving crucial childhood life lessons from someone whose mind is always rushing and jumbling from psychoactive drugs. It's even more difficult to imagine raising a child while always high.
“It'll just be for a little while. A few months, probably. Then after I get back, let's go on a road trip. We'll go straight from the coast of Liberty Moon to the coast of Higashima. How's that?”
Amber gasped. “Like in Journey Across the Moon and Sun?” She asked, quoting a movie title I didn't know.
She let go of me, sniffed, and wiped her eyes. “Oh, my God. It's literally the Star 17 of stoner movies.”
“Alright, then. We'll watch it, then we'll go on the trip.”
“Bet!!” She said with a huge smile. This time, though her tears were visible, the sadness in them was gone.
We shared one more hug, after which she paused and lightly touched my face with her hand, and then she started her long, lonely journey back to the dorm.
“Are you ready now?” Chirped the air behind me.
I whipped around to see Sophus Doragon, having just teleported behind me.
“You want to start training? Now?” I asked, trying to stop my words from wobbling on the way out of my mouth.
“Of course! You only want to stay here for a few months, right? It took me two years to learn Metapneuma! Meaning you've got to train harder than even I did!”
“What?!” My eyes peeled themselves completely bare and I gritted my teeth.
“Metamartial arts is not something so fickle or lenient that you can just ‘get into it’ like another hobby or a subject of academic study.” He declared, putting his hands behind his back and assuming a stern expression.
“W-w-what are we gonna do first..?”
“First,” Doragon began as he walked over to the bookshelf-wall farthest from the front door. “We've got to get you Aligned.” He stood up on his tippy-toes to pick the book on the leftmost part of the top shelf.
“But you said you don't know how people Align.” I asked him.
“Well, I know how people Align. I don't know how to get a person to Align.” Doragon explained as he walked back over to me, stepping slowly as he focused more on carefully explaining Alignment to an Unaligned:
“Alignment occurs when one's body, mind, and soul reach a certain kind of harmony. This harmony can't be measured or truly demonstrated, only observed. And only by other metahumans. Er–” He stopped in his tracks for a second to correct himself. “Is it okay to say that?”
“I mean, I'm not offended by it,” I admit.
Doragon hung the thick, softcover book by its corners from his eager fingers, letting it flop slightly from the bottom, beckoning for me to flip through it. Its title, in Higanese at the top and in Librish on the bottom, read: The Fundamentals of Metaki and Metamartial Arts.
“Read this,” Doragon told me. “It's everything a Metafighter knows before ever stepping into the ring, but after they Align. It tells all about how to harness your Metaki and some basic techniques. I'm told that people can Align from reading it, especially if they have a strong mind, as you seem to have.”
I took the book and started flipping past the foreword and acknowledgements.
“I guess I ought to be hospitable and get you some refreshments,” Sophus said, teleporting away again.
After a few minutes, he was back with a pot of tea and a handmade yunomi for me to drink from. After a few more, he had some cookies. As soon as I bit into them, I was shocked at how warm and gooey they were. They tasted hand-baked and fresh out of the oven.
“How did you make these so quick?” I asked Doragon.
“I baked them with a fire technique I learned from Frederico Fiametta way back in–Ah, I'm sure that stuff’s boring to you.”
“No, no!” I tried to encourage him. “It sounds interesting! Tell me about it.”
“Maybe tomorrow. You need to focus on that book, then rest.”
“By the way, where am I going to sleep?”
“I'll let you sleep in my room. I'll show you to it later.”
Sophus seemed to be trying to contain that playful side of himself he showed us when we first showed up. I guess he was trying to me more like his idea of a good sensei. That meant I had to become a student, and not just somebody visiting his house to ask some questions.
The book opened up with a paragraph about how integral Metafighting has become in our society and how, supposedly, all of the history’s greatest thinkers, leaders, artists, and influencers practiced at least some form of Metamartial arts on the sly, if not professionally. This is also how the book really showed its age. Most schools of today don't focus as much on Metafighting outside the context of history. In my advanced human geography class, they taught that this old way of teaching history undermines the Unaligned and their contributions to humanity.
It also uses the word “metahumans” a lot, which is largely considered an offensive term today, due to how it implies that an Aligned person is some kind of other species than an Unaligned person. Aligned people can have Unaligned children, and Unaligned parents can have Aligned children.
The next section was on the process of Alignment. Much like what Doragon said, there's no definite process to achieving Alignment. Many become Aligned after lots of physical training and meditation, while others become Aligned under stressful, traumatic, or generally pivotal points in life. Finally, of course, is the small handful of Metafighters who are born Aligned. According to the book, those who are Aligned from birth tend to be the strongest.
I glanced up at Sophus, who sat with his feet up in the recliner, eyes closed and mouth agape. In his hands he tenuously clasped a book, which leaned sleepily backwards, inching closer to freedom from its owner's fingers at the pace of his deep, sedated breaths. A snot bubble steadily shifted from the size of a 1-maru coin to the size of Doragon’s callused fists. He didn't look like one of the strongest people in the world in this state. He looked like somebody's grandpa, all perfectly cozy in his wrinkled robe and pajamas. He was sleeping so peacefully that you'd never expect he'd ever fought a day in his life if it weren't for his hands. Cracked, chalky white circles of hardened skin crowned each knuckle.
I thought a bit about what it'd be like to have been born Aligned; to have strength that casually crosses the border between the physics we can observe and make sense of, and the metaphysics of a 63-kilogram teenager being able to lift a car over his head and throw it at someone. I couldn't wrap my mind around it.
Upon Alignment–“the process of crossing over from human to metahuman,” the book calls it–a metahuman gains the ability to sense and generate Metaki. The ability to sense Metaki comes somewhat intuitively, much like any of the five bodily senses. However, like the eyes or ears or tongue, it must be trained in order to discern smaller details within initial perceptions.
Next was an overview of Metaki. Every Aligned person has a finite wellspring of Metaki within them, which, by default, can be sensed by other Aligned people. It emanates from their person like a natural odor. With effort, however, a person can conceal their Metaki, suppressing their aura and making them undetectable to others. Metaki can also be “charged” or built upon, which bolsters one’s aura. The manipulation of one’s Metaki is performed through the breath, the focusing of the mind, and the desire of the soul. I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean.
As the book delved more into the esoteric and spiritual, I struggled to keep up. Eventually, the concepts pooling into my brain started to whirl together, exhausting my mind. I yawned, pouring air into my lungs as tears welled in my eyes. I could’ve sworn I lifted my hand up to wipe them, but the next thing I remembered was opening them in response to my name being called.
“Tate!” Sophus sharply shouted.
This time I rubbed my eyes for sure before looking up at Sophus on the recliner.
“I think that’ll be enough for tonight,” he told me. “Let me show you where you can sleep.” He then stood up, then bent down to take my shoulder, and suddenly everything around me started dematerializing in thin vertical fractures, rematerializing into an entirely different room in a split second. My new surroundings consisted of a cozy little cabin bedroom, with a queen- sized bed next to a window. My eyes were drawn to the cold glow of the waxing crescent moon, which shone bright in the clear sky. When I took a step toward the bed, my eyes snapped down to my leg, then to my torso, and I yelped, seeing that my clothes were gone, replaced with creamy peach silk pajamas which, if I admit, did feel great on my skin.
“What did you do to my clothes?!” I exclaimed to Doragon.
“I hit you a Clothes Beam, one of the techniques I learned from a certain Metafighter–”
“Those clothes were important to me!” I yelled. I put my hands on my forehead, not just out of frustration, but also to check if my bandanna was still on. It wasn’t. I was wearing a bandanna from the Kansach’tii Midenite tribe–where my parents were from. It was orange with a spiky brown pattern in the center, spanning all across my forehead. Little red dots were also sprinkled throughout. It’s the last piece of clothing they ever gave me that still fit. The rest of my outfit I ordered online, but even then, they were kinda expensive, plus they went really well with the bandanna.
“You shouldn’t be so attached to worldly possessions,” Sophus stated, putting his hands–invisible because of the long, wide sleeves covering them–together in a very wiser-than-thou way.
“GIVE ME MY FUCKING CLOTHES BACK!!” I shouted. The way I could only ball up my fists and scream made me feel like a child. I might as well have stomped my foot. Maybe I would’ve gotten physical if he was just a random old man, but I knew I couldn’t do shit against an S-tier Metafighter.
“My apologies,” Sophus said as he walked over to the closet, which was right across the foot of the bed, then opened the door, revealing several empty hangers, with maybe three or four used ones. He picked out an empty one, then with a flash of light from his hand, my outfit fulgurated onto the hanger, with my bandanna hanging untied on the shoulder.
“I forgot how much clothes can mean to people,” he continued.
I grabbed the hanger from him, finally wondering if living with this stranger long enough for me to learn Metapneuma was really worth it.
As I hung my outfit up in the closet, I asked him: “I told you my parents died when I was a baby, right? Well, this bandanna–” I took it off the shoulder of my buttoned ruunpe–“is one of the last things they ever gave me, okay? It means a lot.”
“I see. Once again, my apologies,” he reiterated, bowing to me in earnest. “Now, get some rest, young Shirudo. Tomorrow, we shall begin physical training.”
He then turned off the light and teleported away. I sat on the bed and looked out the window. After finally paying the moon the attention it brightly demanded, I noticed the tree branches scraping against the window. I looked down and saw that the branches were actually coming up from a tree below me. This exquisite little bedroom I was about to sleep in was in a treehouse?
At that point, I decided I couldn’t sleep until I had a look around. I sprung up to my feet, walked to the door, which was in the corner of the room to the left of the closet, then opened it and swung my leg through the doorway, expecting for my foot to hit the floor. Instead, when I put my foot down, it plummeted into a dark, breezy abyss, and almost took the rest of my body with it. I grabbed the doorjamb, saving my own life, and looked down to see that indeed I was in a treehouse–one that only consisted of the bedroom. The door was to the outside, with at least fifty feet of fresh night air separating my foot from the ground. As I curled my toes and pulled myself back into the room, I realized that he still needs to give me my shoes. They were really basic 5,000 maru what-the-fuck-are-those tennis shoes; the only things that didn’t match the outfit. Those I could do without, but I made a mental note to make Doragon give them back anyway.
When I got back into bed, I took a huge breath. Ho. Lee. Shit, I thought to myself. I just changed the entire freaking trajectory of my life. And then I started laughing.