Chapter 8: A New Goal?

Aria gets confused. She doesn't know what Quill is talking about. She thinks that Quill said the energy was familiar. But she still can't understand what he means. It's obvious Quill is hiding something from Aria but what... Aria thought her goal was to train, get stronger and defeat the 'thing' that killed Omnix long ago. She opens her mouth but Quill seems focused on tracing the monster, so she doesn't interfere, not yet.

Quill finally traces the energy he was looking for and puts his hands at the ground. After some seconds, he starts glow. Aria curiously asks why is he glowing.

Quill replies, "I'm trying to understand where 'this thing' has teleported. If I can, we will be able to follow it."

Aria, still not so sure if they should follow 'the thing' just stays silent. But Quill can easily understand that Aria is skeptical about following it. He decides to stay silent, knowing there will be no harm. After some seconds, he traces where 'the thing' has teleported to and opens a wormhole. Aria turns her attention to the wormhole, waiting for Quill to enter firstly.

Quill, sensing that Aria is waiting, enters the wormhole. Right after him, Aria enters and they find themselves in a empty and dark place. This place looks oddly familiar to Quill but it's not hard to understand Aria is a bit nervous about the place. Suddenly, an entity with a golden colored armor gets in front of them, looking directly at Quill. It's face was covered in his helmet, if he had one. Aria was already in a defensive stance, but Quill was pretty calm, waiting for the "guardian"s next move.

For some time, no one moved or talked, but afterwards, Quill got his memory back and opened a black hole to kill the guardian.

This guardian was the thing the new member candidates first needed to finish off to enter The Power Council.

Aria just stands still, shocked but not because of Quills power. Because Quill killed 'The Guardian' without it attacking them. She asks Quill why did he do that.

Quill answers, "The first trial of entering The Power Council is to kill the guardian we just saw. The trial would've started if we moved, which we didn't. I had to kill it. And when it comes to The Power Council. I will explain it to you when the time comes. Watch out! The next trial is speed test! We need to escape a black holes gravitional pull with only speed."

Just some seconds later, a mass of energy starts to form at where the guardian was. Just a bit later, the energy starts to get denser as a black hole starts to form. Aria tries to absorb the energy but it makes a little explosion that catches Aria off-guard. The black hole fully forms right after that, nearly sucking Aria and Quill. Aria tries to absorb the gravitational waves while using the energy in her armor to stay at her place, trying to stick herself to the dark ground, and succeeds at doing both, saving both herself and Quill, but Quill moves faster than light to not get pulled, playing by the rules. After 10 seconds of the trial, the black holes closes as Quill gets on his knees, gesturing Aria to do the same. Aria looks at Quill and gets on her knees, facing the same way as Quill does.

After some time, they see a light source, which is a light ball, and under it, there are 12 different entites. Six are sitting above the other six. They are clearly powerful. Especially the ones sitting above the others. Aria looks a bit intimidated but she calms herself down and turns to Quill.

Aria asks, "Who are those? You know them... right?"

Quill answers, "Yes, I do. The lower and higher power council. The name speaks for itself. They are pretty powerful. I was once-"

A voice, coming from one of the creatures who are sitting below the others, cuts Quills speech and says, "Quill. We missed you. You had potential. Why did you leave the lower power council? We are now one entity less then we should be."

Quill drifts his attention to the one speaking and says, "Firstly, I have my reasons to leave the council. I would have never stayed in a council who would ultimately fail in their goal. I don't want to die, you know. Secondly, even if we reach our goal to take over fiction and 'the lands beyond fiction', who was gonna counquer them. Our goals had so many holes. It was better for me to make myself goals alone. I'm surprised you all are still alive and the power council is still going."

Another entity, one that is sitting below too starts talking : "Who is this weakling you brought here? Surprisingly, she has potential, but not power. That's not enoug-"

Both Quill and Aria gets surprised by the entity stopping talking, so they focus on his head, seeing a hand touching it with one finger. It's the hand of one of the entities sitting above the others.

A bit later, it starts talking : "Silence. You talked enough, and your words were empty."

It stops talking and turns to Aria, "You have a lot of potential. Immesurably. Boundless. I am lost for words. You should train your power of course. I think that's what you were doing before my fellow Lower Power Council member helped you?"

Aria nods silently. She wants to learn more about this 'organization'. But she decides to wait until they leave their presence before asking Quill.

The entity talking previously continues : "Good. We know some planets that are pretty powerful entities. Be careful. That place is not controlled by us. For protection, lend me your hand. I will give you a... 'tattoo'. You just need to press it to come back."

The entity stretches out his hand to hold Arias hand, "Come on."

Aria holds his hand, just as the entity touches at the back of her hand, both she and Quill get teleported to a planet with insanely big trees at different colors, the air changing color like an optic illusion. Aria looks at her hand, seeing the 'tattoo' the entity was talking about. She wants to try it, but she holds herself, knowing she should only use it on emergencies.

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She turns to Quill to say : "So... Will you explain everything to me?"

Quill sighs before replying : "Yes. Those were 'The Power Council'. So, those entities are trying to take over 'the lands beyond fiction'. But don't get me wrong. I didn't leave them because they want to take over 'the lands beyond fiction'. Everyone powerful tries that. That's not something 'antagonist'. I left because they would ultimately lose. After I learned about Omnix and Astrorune, I understood how many other powerful beings must there be that I don't know, and if I helped The Power Council, I might have been killed. I'm surprised the council is still going. But I still don't see a bright future for them. But hey, at least they help you train your powers."

Aria listens, genuinely interested. After Quill finishes talking, Aria starts talking : "Interesting. But you're right. I still have to train if I want to kill the 'thing' that killed Omnix. I wanna ask. Do you think it is searching for me?"

Quill thinks for a moment before replying to her : "To be realistic, probably yes. But if we act optimistic, it might not be. Maybe it's waiting a confrontation from you."

Aria replies : "That's a good idea! But if I try to escape, it will probably kill me right? That's why I should train! Let's go!"

Chapter 9: The Training Arc

Both Aria and Quill start walking in silence, both trying to catch a monster with their senses. A bit later, Arias senses catch something unfamiliar as Aria signals Quill to stop walking. Quill understands to situation and obeys, staying silent. As they were waiting for an attack, Quill makes energy orbs in his hands as Aria makes a sword with the energy in her armor. Jusdt as they were waiting, a humanoid creature with no texture except for color changing body, attacks them both. Aria blocks the attack but Quill doesn't interfere. The monster sees an opening and uses one of his hands to attack Aria from sides. Aria headbuts the attack and absorbs the energy (momentum) of it. She then pushes the monster back to think of a new movement. Aria then concentrates to the place and senses an energy source, then understands that it's the planet itself. Right then, the monster attacks again. Aria quickly makes a sword and blocks the attack. She tries to absorb the energy but... she fails? She then decides to make a big sphere of the energy in her armor to block the energy from the planet. She then tries to cut one arm of the monster to see if her plan works. When she cuts the arm of the monster, the monster fails to regenerate. Seeing that her plan worked, she attacks the monster with everything she got. Beams, swords, spears, cuts of energy... the monster who got injured pretty badly, tries to leave the sphere of energy that Aria made to be able to regenerate but Aria blocks the way. Now that the connection between the planet and the monster got destroyed, she tries to absorb the monsters

energy again. And she succeeds this time.

While absorbing, she feels like she hears something : "There are more of us..."

Aria gets a chill. She turns to Quill and asks what is the meaning of this.

Quill replies : "That's pretty obvious. The monster said there are more of them. While you were absorbing the monster, the monster told you there are more of them. We should be careful."

Aria nods and continues walking. They both walk for a while before sensing the same thing as before. Understanding this is another monster, Aria holds her sword tightly, waiting for a confrontation. She decides to go to some open area to be able to fight easily. She finds an open place and goes to there, Quill following her calmly. They stop, getting attacked immediately. Aria cuts the monster in half, but the monster regenerates immediately. Aria quickly dashes back a bit, but not too much so she can make an energy field to cut the connection of the monster with the planet, so it won't be able to regenerate but she fails. She tries again, only to fail once again. She gets puzzled a bit, just when the monster attacks. She barely blocks it and falls to the ground, the monster on top of her. She starts thinking of what to do in such a situation. Just then, Quill interferes, making a blast of energy that knocks the entity away. Aria gets up, just to get attacked by the monster again. She then blocks it, cuts the monster in half and punches it with the energy she has got in the armor. She then understands that her energy in the armor has ran out. She tries to concentrate, trying to absorb energy from the planet itself, the energy source of the monsters. She fails to concentrate at the first try, because of the monster attacking her again. She knows that all she can do for now is block the attacks with her sword or tank them with her armor. Knowing that tanking them with her armor will just make her lose her concentration to the planet, she decides to block the attack without giving much attention. Then she gives an opening because she is not giving attention. The monster, who saw the opening, attacks her from the opening, making her lose concentration. She decides to give one last attack before concentrating so she consecutively slashes the monster, dashes back and starts concentrating. She succeeds this time, absorbing the energy of the planet. She uses the new energy she got to destroy the monster with its own energy.

She then turns to Quill and says : "Hey Quill. I think I trained enough of energy-based enemies. I think I should start training against entities that have physical based attacks."

She closes her eyes while saying the second sentence. When she opens her eyes back, she finds both of them in the same dark room. She shyly turns back to see The Power Council again.

The creature that sent Aria to the planet she just came from starts talking: "So you want to train against entities with physical based attacks? I know somewhere you can train against those kinds of entities, too. But then I want you to go investigate the death of Omnix with Quill. Which I think was your goal. I think his killer is the only barrier between us and the domination of 'the lands beyond fiction'."

Before Aria can answer, both she and Quill get sent to a planet. She decides not to waste time by getting surprised. Instead, she starts searching some monster to kill. She senses that there is no open energy source in the planet that is like the source in the previous planet. She understands her only weapon in this fight will be the energy she already has. She makes sure Quill is following before continuing. They encounter a monster, but Aria seems so sure of herself. She punches it with a fraction of her power, killing it. She then sees there are some giants that didn't notice her yet. Aria sees that they are far away so she starts running towards there. Quill follows her slowly, not running like Aria does. When Aria reaches there, she gets noticed by one of the giants. But then she gets a wash of relief as she sees that those giants don't fight as groups. Just as she wasn't paying much attention, the giant that saw her punches the ground, making the ground break and Aria fall. But It doesn't end there. A shockwave releases from the punch. Aria gets sent back from the shockwave, but it doesn't seem to affect Quill. Aria ignores that Quill doesn't get affected and dashes again. Before the monster can punch the ground again, Aria jumps to the air. She then makes a giant beam and shoots it to the giant, destroying one of its arms before getting hit directly. She gets a bit of pain, but nothing more since she absorbs most of the enegy of the attack, but not all because of not being ready. She then uses the energy she has in her armor to make a shockwave to quickly get back to ground. She then makes a sword, jumps into air, makes a shockwave to get closer. The giant puts his remaining hand for defense. Aria gets to right, cuts the arm, jumps from the arm with the help of the energy in her armor, and cuts the giants neck, killing it. Quill claps his hands to congratulate Aria. Just as the dead giant was falling to the ground, she jumps to land. Just as she was landing, she sees that a giant was very close to her. The giant saw them fight and came to kill Aria. Quill dashes towards her to take her off the way of the giants punch. Aria blinks, and when she opens her eyes, she sees fire. The giant was on fire... She lands, Quill next to her. They both see a figure inside the flames, walking towards them.