In meditation, Levi stared at his core. The solid mass at his center, the beginning and end of who he was, he realized, was almost diminished.

The ring around it held slightly less essence, but it was of a higher quality. And it was as dense as it had ever been.

Still, the wisps of his lower quality essence, his original essence, floated in from wherever it was being generated. That part was still a mystery to Levi, but he did understand it came from his existence somehow.

He needed to make progress forward. He needed to push it past whatever boundary he couldn't see. He needed to cycle the remaining parts of the older essence and re-consolidate a new core with the improved essence.

He stared into the core in the center of his mindspace and willed it to spin faster, to cycle faster.

He put everything he had into it, his will, his focus...his anger, hope, and determination.

His core sped up significantly, but it wasn't enough. It sucked in wisps of essence that was quickly refined into the higher essence that joined the ring around his core.

It still wasn't enough. His core was empty. A husk. And the ring around it sat there like so much untapped potential.

He stared at it, wanting more. He contemplated the ring around his core... floating, orbiting, and inert.

Then he had a thought. Focusing on the ring of higher quality essence, he willed it to move, to spin it like a disk the way he had his core.

But it wouldn't budge under his will, maintaining its slow, lazy orbit. Levi tried the opposite direction. Again, the ring refused to respond.

For a moment, Levi felt frustration creeping in, but he brushed it away from his mind like a gnat in his face, reapplying his focus.

If it wouldn't spin in those directions...

Levi flipped the ring around his core like a coin. It suddenly spun perpendicular to the rotation of his old core, and he could see it tightening.

Capitalizing on his success, he willed both to move in the directions they needed to go.

It was like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. It slipped from the grip of his will and intent, his focus struggling to keep up.

It felt like controlling a gyroscope with your mind.

Frustration built again. Levi could feel the headache trying to push him out of the meditation space he was in, but he refused to let go.

Like a gyroscope, he thought.

And then, with a bit of inspiration, Levi consolidated his split focus and intent on the core and rings into one.

'SPIN LIKE A GYROSCOPE,' Levi commaded with pure thought and willpower.

And they obeyed.

As if taking a will of their own, they spun rapidly. The rings tightened until it was hard to tell where the center of the core and the rings were even separate.

Then, Levi felt a tighteness in him he couldn't explain, like a balloon ready to pop.

He pushed his will harder, and everything went black.

----

"What the fuck is wrong with Levi?" Joe said staring down at his convulsing body.

Paige snapped out of watching through the crows' eyes. "What?" Her eyes quickly found Levi, and she flung herself to his side. "Oh shit. Oh fuck. I don't know. He was meditating. I was scouting like you told me."

Paige was trying to hold Levi still, barely pushing down her own panic. She looked up to Joe, "Fuck, Joe.... what do we do?"

Joe's face looked undecided between bursting into tears or being engulfed in rage. When he answered, it was ice cold. "For now, we hope he gets through whatever this is on his own. But we've got shit to do and people to save." In one fluid motion, Joe reached down and threw Levi over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. "Follow me and fill me in about the bandits on the way."

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----

Levi found himself standing over a $10 disposable grill on the balcony of a cheap hotel room overlooking the Mississippi riverfront in New Orleans. Shrimp was cooked over cheap coals.

He recognized the place. A memory shared with his dad and older sister.

Levi's dad had come home drunk a couple of nights before, back in East Texas. He'd raved about making a trip to New Orleans, seeing Bourbon Street and the other sights. His dad had wanted to leave that very moment.

Levi's older sister had talked their dad down. She'd gotten him to agree to going to sleep, waking up in the morning, and then only going if he still wanted to. Levi and his sister had gone to bed thinking that was the end they'd hear of it. Their dad would pass out, and then wake up not even remembering any of it.

His older sister had been sixteen. Levi had been thirteen.

Their dad had woke them up at 7 a.m., already fully packed for the trip. He'd still been just as excited, if not more so.

In retrospect, Levi realized his dad had probably never gone to sleep at all, because he'd been high as a kite on either meth or a ton of coke.

Levi remembered the trip clearly. It was the first time he'd seen a strip club, though he couldn't go in. Restaurants, bars, shops, and strip clubs had pretty much made up the entirety of Bourbon Street.

It definitely wasn't the kind of place for a 16 year old girl or a 13 year old boy to be.

He vividly remembered looking into an alley and seeing a homeless man in ragged clothes tear a chunk of raw hamburger meat from the grocery store packaging and shove it into his mouth. Levi had caught the man's eye and remembered the way the man just looked too tired to feel ashamed.

Levi clearly remembered the mixture of confusion and sadness that had overwhelmed him. He'd grown up poor in the country, the backwoods, and never witnessed desperation so deep or as complete as that.

It had stayed with Levi for the rest of his life.

"Still one of the best memories you have, huh?" a voice said.

Levi looked up over the grill to find Rick standing there.

Levi hesitated, but it was true. "Yeah. It was a good one. Dad was a little pissy the second day, but never was actually mean to us. Looking back, that was probably because he was coming down off the drugs. Still, it's one of the best memories I have."

Rick said nothing. He flipped the shrimp on the grill, then stood and looked out towards the wide Mississippi.

Levi tensed. "Hey, why am I here? I think...I think I was meditating. And then, suddenly... here."

"You're here because you're evolving...or ascending...depending on how you think of it. Your core is upgrading. You're at this exact 'here' because I didn't have a lot to work with. Not too many happy places, much less somewhere that could also give you perspective." Rick continued to stare over the water as he answered, but the tone of his voice seemed far more serious than his casual body language.

----

"He's getting worse," Paige said as she followed Joe, almost jogging to keep up with his long stride.

"I know. Can't worry about that now." Joe growled through gritted teeth, trying to hang on to a thrashing Levi. "Focus. How many in their group?"

Paige hesitated a moment, then answered. "Seventeen."

"Have you found their camp?" Joe asked.

"Yeah... in that direction, roughly." Paige pointed. "The girls are there, and there's only five men standing guard in the main camp. The raiding party isn't that far from their camp, maybe an hour walk, but they don't look like they are in a hurry to get back. They're taking a break. Most are eating and drinking."

"Good. That works in our favor. What else can you tell me?"

-----

"Hey, you kind of make my life sound sad," Levi joked.

"Cut the bullshit, Levi. We both know what it was like. You don't get it. You have no time. You pushed this ascension way too soon. You aren't ready. And I'm trying to help you." Rick's response was sharp and uncompromising.

"What do you mean?" Levi asked, suddenly concerned.

"You've done things backwards, again. You should have never had the will to push yourself beyond that threshold without some potent identity driving it, with some singular ideal pushing you onto the first step of your Path. You don't have that. Your identity is, without trying to sound like an asshole, a collection of paper thin shattered glass that you've tried to shape into a passable sculpture."

Levi tried not to let Rick's words sting. "So what am I supposed to do?"

Rick looked away from the water and into Levi's eyes. "You better give yourself the first honest look you've ever given yourself and think of something real. Something you can truly live. Fast. And you better cling to that...because that's the only way you survive your first step."

"But... I thought we've done this already. Wasn't that what the entire interview was about?" Levi asked.

"Levi, stop bullshitting. You know exactly what the hell I'm talking about. We're inside you, me and you. We both know the truth. You can embrace truth, that first step, or die here."

Levi's breath caught, and he felt his back bump against the brick sides of the hotel balcony. He slid down it, thinking. After a moment of thought, Levi whispered, "I'm a terrible person..."

Rick slapped the absolute fuck out of Levi. "Listen to me, you stupid son-of-a-bitch, if you die, I die. Stop."

Levi looked up at Rick's eyes. They glared down at him in anger, but also a terror Levi hadn't seen before.

Rick pressed his forehead against Levi's, wrapping an arm around him in a hug.

After a moment, a realization swept through Levi. "I-I am not a terrible person. I don't have to believe I that am," he whispered.

"Just good enough," Rick whispered back. Levi felt Rick's tear touch his cheek before everything went white.

----

"Put him down! He looks like he's dying." Paige grabbed Joe's arm to stop his determined march to the training yard.

He turned and gave her a glare, but as Levi seized on his shoulder, he decided she was right.

Slowly, he lowered Levi to the ground. Joe stared down at his seizing friend, his mouth a tight line.

And then Levi went limp.