“Are you serious? On your second fight?” Akira said, his confusion on full display as he looked towards Lyra. She seemed deep in thought as she slowly shook her head.
“Why would they put you against a Goldenback in your second fight?” she said. “You need to train. A lot. If you were fighting against a person, you could’ve got by with a good gameplan and discipline. But against a gorilla, you need to get stronger. Simple as that.”
“Goldenback gorillas are like gorillas back on earth. Except bigger, badder and smarter too.” Akira’s confusion teetered into unease.
“So I’m fucked?” Jay said. Lyra and Akira’s grimaces worried Jay. Their confusion and pessimism worried him even more.
“Akira, take Jay to Tranquillity Tower. Hopefully the storm sage can give him something, it’ll make the preparation a lot easier. Give him the rundown of Harmony on the way, nothing too in depth, but enough to get by. I’ll compile a list of previous Goldenback vs newbie fights. When you come back, they’ll be ready to watch.”
Akira nodded, waving Jay over to him. “Let’s go to the tower now. You’re not fucked fucked. But five days isn’t a lot of time.”
Akira’s stern voice matched Lyra’s intensity.
Jay had no time to waste, he had to fight a gorilla in five days.
A fucking gorilla.
----------------------------------------
“That’s a rough second fight man. Gorillas are insane. Have you seen what they look like when you shave off their hair. They’re jacked.”
Akira's words upon leaving the film room weren’t especially encouraging. He described his opponent’s strength with the wisdom of a man who’d watched one too many Joe Rogan podcasts.
“I think you can do it though.” He said with surprising conviction. “We’re not on Earth anymore. I mean you saw Vega's fight, right? If you put in the work, you can do it too. If a teenage anime fanboy like me can get by in the coliseum, a world champion boxer can too.”
Hopefully Akira was right. Work, work, work. Jay wasn’t gonna lose a fight because he didn’t try hard enough.
“I hope so. But I wasn’t the world champion. I came here before I even got the chance.” It still hurt Jay to say it out loud. He’d failed his dream, his family’s dream. And there was no going back to fix it.
But he had a new goal now. Survive the next five days. There was no point wallowing in the past.
“So what’s the deal with essence then?” said Jay, forcing himself out of his head and into the real world. “I’ve heard so much about it but have no idea what it actually is.”
“Each person you ask about essence will tell you it works in a completely different way. It’s the kinda thing that is heavily dependent on the individual, but there are a few universal truths.”
Akira cleared his throat, he couldn’t hide the happiness from his eyes as he began talking.
“Everything that exists, has a reason to exist. There’s a phrase in French, raison d'être, that matches essence quite nicely. It means reason for existence. If there’s no reason for something’s existence, then it simply doesn’t exist. It sounds simple, but it’s important to recognise.
“Now, one thing can have multiple raisons d'être. Fire means a completely different thing to you or I, compared to the caveman who’s just discovered he can cook food. Something’s reason for existence, its essence, can be completely different based on who you ask. But it exists, and that’s what matters. Essence isn’t a physical thing; you can’t see or touch it. But neither is it simply conceptual. It lies in the murky middle ground between the two states. You following?”
Jay looked at Akira like he was speaking a different language. He wasn’t sure how the concept of essence fit in with Vega throwing fireballs out of her hands, but he nodded. Hopefully it would all make sense eventually.
“To understand how to manipulate essence, you have to look inward to what we call your personal essence. Your personal essence is your raison d'être in its purest form. Your actions, thoughts, dreams, desires and each and every little thing in between. When you begin to understand yourself, you gain power over these things. You gain control over your personal essence.
“That’s true on Earth, how does this fit with Vega throwing fireballs out of her hands? I hear you ask. Well, that’s where the magic happens. Through meditation, training, or whatever works best for you, you can now understand and can control your personal essence. Then, when you discover an essence that aligns with your personal essence, control over one leads to control over the other.
“I like to think of it like a Venn diagram. One circle is your personal essence, the other is the essence you wish to manipulate. The overlap is what you have control over. If a concept aligns with you personally, and you have a good understanding of it, you can link it to your personal essence. There’s many names for this, but I like to call it resonance.
“Just like on Earth, where two separate vibrations resonate to produce a greater whole. Two essences, when correctly aligned, can resonate with each other. Control over the first, personal, essence creates control over the second, outside, essence.”
While he explained essence to Jay, Akira turned into a new man. Gone was the laid-back youth who Vega had dragged into a drinking contest the night before. His voice beamed with passion and confidence. His eyes betrayed a deep hunger, finally let loose from its chains.
Jay guessed this was what it felt like whenever he’d go deep into analysing a fight, and the unlucky soul next to him just had to sit there listening to him rant.
He didn’t consider himself unlucky though. Akira had clearly put a lot of time into understanding the intricacies of essence. It’s the only way he’d be able to explain it to a beginner so easily. Jay felt immensely grateful he had Akira by his side, essence manipulation was still a mystery, but now it looked a whole lot more solveable.
“What about Harmony, is that just the study of essence?” Jay said. His head was already bursting at the seams with information, but he at least wanted a definition before he visited the storm sage.
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“If all I did was sit here and talk to you non-stop for the next five days, I wouldn’t even scratch the surface of that question. The further you dig into Harmony, the more confused you get. Not that that stops anyone from digging, of course. One of the most literal definitions of Harmony is simply growth. A harmonizer consciously looks inward and outward, then uses these insights to grow. Yes, it’s reductive and overly simplistic, but it’s one of the only definitions almost everyone can agree on.
“There is one other, slightly more nuanced, definition that is widely accepted though: Finding one’s place in the world and moulding the world in one’s image.”
Akira paused his explanation, leaving Jay to think on the definition as they walked towards Tranquillity tower.
Finding one’s place in the world and moulding the world in one’s image. What did that even mean? Jay thought he understood it in a literal sense. Finding a goal, something you want to change. Striving towards it, doing everything possible to achieve it. But what did it mean in the context of essence?
And how did all this philosophy have anything to do with Vega throwing fireballs?
The confusion on Jay’s face must have been painfully apparent. Akira couldn’t hide his smile, and Jay couldn’t blame him. He felt far over his head.
“Don’t feel bad, all this is somewhat academic and not strictly necessary to harmonise or use essence. It’s not exactly true either.” Akira said, enjoying Jay's confusion a bit too much.
“If it’s not necessary or true, why are you telling me about it?”
“It’s a model. A way of thinking. If you can get your head around it, it makes harmonising much easier than just throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks. Vega can make explosions happen using just her body. That’s a fact. We’ve seen it happen. But it’s magic and we don’t know why or how. If we look at it through the lens of essence and Harmony, we can start to stitch the evidence together and begin to understand it. All models are wrong, but some are useful. If you can keep this in mind whenever you’re training, it’ll make it a whole lot easier.”
Jay remembered how he thought essence looked more solveable after Akira’s first explanation. He laughed at his hubris. Akira was obviously right about one thing; of that Jay was certain. The further you dig into Harmony, the more confused you get. Jay had dug, or rather watched someone else dig, for all of five minutes. He was already in far over his head.
If he added Harmony to his List of Confusing Shit, Jay was certain it would never be completed. To keep that slim glimmer of hope alive, Jay left it off and made a mental note just to try his best.
“I hope this gets easier over time.” Jay said. He knew that it probably didn’t work like that, but hope was all he had.
“Don’t worry too much, you haven’t even tried it yet. Are you a practical learner? Most athletes are. I bet it’ll start to click more after you visit the storm sage, no matter what he has you do.”
I fucking hope so.
Akira led Jay through the pavilion and back onto Reveller’s Avenue. Instead of walking down the eclectic boulevard, he waited at the pavilions edge. Standing near a set of tramlines in the middle of the avenue. He pointed to a metal pillar next to the line and a flicker of gold washed over his eyes. Jay followed his lead and looked at the pillar.
The next outward tram arrives in: 1 minute.
“This place has trams?” Jay said. He hadn’t noticed them every other time he’d walked down Reveller’s Avenue.
“Yep, the island’s about the size of a big city or tiny country on Earth. It would be pretty annoying to get around without them. The best part is gladiators can use them for free.”
Everything Jay learned about Arenara Fortunis always provided more questions than answers. The city had a functional public transport system, more than could be said for most cities on Earth, but Jay had only ever seen people walking. A coliseum towered into the sky at the island’s centre, but almost every building here, including the coliseum, seemed to be built out of stone. Jay hadn’t seen a single person use a phone, or any other piece of technology, but there was an augmented reality system imbedded into everyone that let them watch fights and order beers.
Jay's frustration was at least entertaining to one person. Akira leant against the metal pillar with a wry smile.
“Don’t even try to wrap your head around how this place works. I tried to understand it for the first few months, but it makes no sense whatsoever. Harmony and its implications have shifted this planet’s development in a radically different direction to Earth’s.” He said. Akira rummaged in the inside fold of his kimono, pulling out a tiny crystal from an internal pocket before handing it to Jay. “Assimilate this on the ride, don’t worry, its nothing like the translator. It’ll only take a few seconds.”
“What is it?”
“It’s sort of like a travel guide I’ve been working on. I’ve been journaling my impressions of all the places I’ve visited on the island. The crystal will have them pop up on your system when you go there, should at least give you some background on the places you go to.”
Before Jay could thank Akira, he kicked off the pillar and vanished.
Wait what.
Jay cleared his eyes and looked again, had Akira just disappeared into thin air? It certainly looked that way, but now that Jay was focusing, Jay could see murky ripples in the air beside him. Still doubting his eyesight, he stumbled forward. Holding his hands out in front of him as he inched towards the spot where Akira had disappeared.
His fingertips brushed up against a metal door and Jay's vision finally cleared. He was touching a sleek white tram carriage that wasn’t there a moment before. Beside him, Akira grinned from inside the tram.
Jay shook his head as he pulled himself into the carriage.
Every second. Every fucking second there’s something new with this place.
Can I not even have a few moments where stuff just makes sense?
Akira's grin showed no signs of fading.
“Don’t even try” he said.
Jay slumped into his seat and sighed.
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Some say that if you want to have a good time on Arenara Fortunis, go to Gambler’s Avenue. Those people are wrong. Reveller’s avenue is the opposite side of the island and for good reason. If they were next to each other, nobody would gamble because they’d all be here partying instead. And the suits in charge can’t be having that. Reveller’s avenue is probably the best place to watch a fight other than live. Not much beats a bar full of drunk people hungry for some blood.
If that doesn’t sound fun, maybe try a different island.
Jay read the pop up as he watched the many colours of Reveller's Avenue whir by out of the tram window. Akira told him that there were eight districts, called octants, on Arenara Fortunis. Each had their own avenue, running from the pavilion to the coast, each were named after the group that ran them and each had their own unique atmosphere. A spark of excitement surged within Jay, but he held it at bay. He was certainly interested in visiting all the various avenues on the island, but right now he had more important things to focus on.
Namely whatever Tranquillity tower and the storm sage had in store for him.
Akira nudged his knee. Jay nodded and stood up. They’d reached the end of the line. The pair hopped off the tram and kept walking southward. Jay could already smell the sea. They crested a hill and Jay got his first glimpse of the ocean surrounding Arenara Fortunis. Although clear skies and sun reigned above him, Jay saw clouds on the horizon. A light sea breeze blustered inland, spitting at Jay with salt and sand.
The gust kicked every one of his hairs upright.
The beautiful white sands were dotted with people. Some sat silently, lying down and feeling the calming caress of the late morning sun. Others were more active. With weather like this, where else would they head for revelry? There was another group of people though. The third group were already packing up their things. They knew a storm was coming.
Once he hit the shoreline, Akira turned left. He pointed into the distance. Jay followed his finger to a cloud of mist further along the coast.
“That where we’re headed.” He asked.
“Yep”
They walked in silence. First walking along the seaside path, then through a few inland alleyways before a final stretch of rocky shores. Akira stopped. Mere metres from the solid wall of fog.
“Remember to be you in there. Don’t worry about impressing the sage or anything stupid like that. Don’t worry about finding essence or manipulating it. All that will come. Just remember who you are.” Akira said. He tried to hide it, but nervousness crept through his grave expression.
Jay slowly nodded. His face showed nothing.
He thanked Akira, then stepped into the unknown.