Chapter Twenty-Eight
"Even the strongest bonds can break." - The Reckoner, Former Champion.
Level Five
Zar’Keth Village
Full Team
"And then she let me help push one of the ore carts back to the village. The whole 7.2 kilometers!" Frank exclaimed with extra emphasis as he and the team gathered for breakfast with Kael. "Two weeks of the same thing every day. Dawn until dusk mining ore, followed by weapon and armor building in the Smithy until the early hours. These people don’t stop!"
"Wait, so they let you help with forging?" Trish asked with a mischievous glint in her eye, already knowing the answer. Frank had told some version of this story every day since the second day at camp.
"No. But—"
"Do you know her name yet?" Trish interjected before Frank could finish.
"No. Not yet—"
"But she is just the most perfect being in the entire world?" Will cut in with a mocking tone, his eyes twinkling with amusement.
"Well, not perfect, but—"
"But she is the greatest artist and innovator you have ever seen?" Trish continued, barely containing her laughter.
"Yea..." Frank looked around, deflated, realizing he might be oversharing again.
"Oh, Forge, we get it. We can tell you've been working hard," James chimed in, now accustomed to using their hero names as they sat with Kael, surrounded by Tribesmen. He tried to shift the tone to support their friend. "That Eagles jacket looks a bit loose on you in the midsection."
"Seriously. I can't believe that with all the worlds, eons, and eons of choices, the System picked a place that made you lose your baby fat," Will joked, adding a dramatic flourish to his words.
"Baby fat? But I'm 19?" Frank looked genuinely confused.
Will leaned in close to his friend, "Forge, there's absolutely no way these chubby cheeks have changed since birth. The fat cells in your face must be devastated to lose their lifelong friends," he continued, reaching up to pinch Frank's cheek with a grin.
"You are looking good, Forge," Nadia joined in as Frank slapped Will's hand away. "Both inside and out," she finished with a wink.
Frank's face flushed. "Yeah, uh, well, Surge is looking good too!" he stammered, almost blurting out the last line. Tuck was also roped into the embarrassment, swearing that Nadia was doing this to Frank on purpose.
"You guys need to stop fighting over Kama," Trish interjected. "She only has room in her life for one man."
"Uh, speak for your—" Nadia began but was cut off as Frank's voice exploded with intensity.
"I'M NOT, I WOULD NEVER!" Frank shouted, causing a few other tables to glance over—Nadia feigned sadness, placing a hand over her chest.
"NO, I MEAN, I DON'T. SURGE AND I ARE JUST—"
"Jesus, Forge. Stop. Please. For both of us," Tuck cut off Frank, putting his hands on his forehead and choosing not to look at anyone else at the table.
Laughter erupted at the table at the expense of the two boys—a sight and experience that had been dwindling over the last few weeks as not everyone shared Frank's enthusiasm for their training.
"Well, that is a sight to see. It's good to see you smile again, Fury," James took a moment to embrace his friend, understanding that her presence and personality had been shifting over the past few weeks.
"Good to smile?" Emy said, giving a sharp look back toward James.
"Yeah, it's just good to see you enjoying yourself, that's all."
"That's what you care about?" Emy's voice caught. "Is that why you have been spying on me the past few weeks?" Her voice turned to anger as the mood shifted.
"No? No. Rose and I have just been working on training. You know I wouldn’t do that."
Emy looked ready to respond again, but Trish spoke first: "Okay, okay. Easy. Both of you. I think you guys may need to talk this out later."
"There's no need to talk. Mind your own damn business," Emy responded with a matter-of-fact tone, prompting James to avoid any response. His face twisted in sadness and confusion, hurt by her words.
…
Silence endured at the table, and from that moment forward, only small talk was communicated. The team was aware of everyone's progress.
Despite her constant baiting of Frank, Trish also often overstated her new learnings or finds within the heaps of old tech. She spent full days sitting on top of rubble, tweaking and conversing with Sutt, quickly becoming fast friends in what became known as "nerd-ness." Trish often shared that it was her first time being out-nerded by an old lady. She frequently brought trinkets to the table to show off, leaving the team struggling to comment on their lack of understanding. This, however, didn’t stop the twinkle in Trish's eyes as she returned to the same place day after day.
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Nadia continued in the infirmary with Lysa, slowly learning the ways of life and healing within the village. She discovered a new path of energy balance, sharing energy through life forms such as soil and trees. Passing her energy through these new mediums, she strengthened and returned it to her patients. These guests could probably be counted on a single hand, with Will entering the infirmary almost every night.
Will and Tuck continued to work the fields in the morning and joined the warriors in the training arena. Just weeks in, both started to see significant changes in their fighting, learning how the fighters fought with strategy and simplicity, creating meaningful movements. However, Tuck's progression slowed as he branched away from the guild to practice his movements—something Steel agreed required self-learning and reflection, as everyone has their path.
James spent his days exploring the wider area with Rose and spending time with Elric. This allowed James to work on his range with his bow, often talking in kilometers when referring to targets he had started hitting, even using Rose to help identify markers as his vision faltered. James also continued to develop the talents he had learned in previous training with Frank, such as tracking, hunting, and marking the environment around him. During breakfast, he often asked Frank questions for his "Boy Scout" guidance, where Nex's bookish knowledge lacked. For the moment, he stayed following only those within the tribe, but internally, he fought the urge to venture north to witness those below the mountain. Unfortunately, James's training also brought him to witness Emy's training more than once, often seeing her frustration from a distance.
Emy's enthusiasm for sharing her learning and training dwindled over the two weeks as constant failures riddled her conversations. Once beaming with optimism like Frank, her experiences had turned into tales of disaster and lack of progress, often dampening the team's mood. The hope for Emy's achievements never wavered among her friends, but she internally struggled to see the purpose of coming to this village. She spent days practicing her skills, meditating, and attempting to master her Quantum Gateway, only to face failure after failure. The team knew something had to change; she needed to talk to someone. But with their Coach back at the Hangar, who could that be?
***
Emy
She had to do it. She didn’t have a choice, no matter the look on his face. She replayed the conversation and reimagined James's face as she disregarded his friendship. James had been a constant ally her entire life, and his support throughout the years allowed her to maintain some semblance of sanity. She hated herself for what she had done but knew it needed to happen.
"I'll admit, Emy, I am not fully sure what is going on in your brain, but I know that James will understand eventually. Shoot, even I hope to understand what is going on. It's almost like I have been missing pieces of your life for the last few weeks," Nex stated in a tone of soft hope. He attempted to support Emy as her mind raced, but he constantly challenged himself, revisiting Emy's life to piece together what had led to the conversation at breakfast.
"Don't overthink it, Nex. I promise it will make sense," Emy assured Nex, sharing a mental nudge with her friend. "Alright, Nex, let's give this Gateway another go. I can feel we are close."
Emy wasted no time after breakfast, heading to her usual spot by the lake where the team had arrived. It was the same place local fishermen frequented, just off the local trail departing from the western wall of the village. She attempted to help the fishers occasionally but sensed they could tell she was a fire type. They simply ignored or diverted their eyes when Emy tried to ask about their work. Giving up, she returned to her training. She had been an outcast all her life; why would she bother caring about being liked on a planet millions, maybe even billions, of light years away?
She had to admit, she was beyond frustrated. This Quantum Gateway was mind-numbingly complex—complex in design, complex in skillset, and complex in not having someone to help her, well, at least mostly...
Sitting in her usual location, surrounded by burnt grass, dirt, and a ring of destruction, she again closed her eyes. Sensing the space around her, she expanded her perception. Trial and error had led her to believe she was creating a snapshot—not just of what existed around her. She had already perfected imagining the entirety of the space, down to each grain of sand.
Nex helped her freeze a moment in time, creating a projection of the space she could float around in, maneuvering her perspective in all directions, zooming into every fragmented piece of earth, its genetic makeup, its atoms, and connections, forming the vision she was imagining. In and out, navigating the areas, she mentally asked Nex to freeze smaller portions of the space into the broader data stream documenting it. It was painstaking, yet as she moved to gather more and more details into the complex navigation of the Quantum Gateway, she began to see less and less destruction around her. She was on track. She would soon have it.
Happy with her details, she proceeded to lock it down with Nex and integrate it within her Gateway; standing up from the ground now, she moved to walk away from the spot she had painstakingly detailed for two weeks. Now, a good enough distance away, she ripped a hole into the void and created a gateway. Staring into the black, she took a deep breath.
"See you on the other side, Nex."
"Yes. Instantaneously!" Nex chimed in, having experienced zero lag time between the leap of faith and abrupt chaos.
Emy stepped once more, and darkness consumed her vision.
***
UNKNOWN
Emy
"Well, hello again, my little wanderer. Nearly perfect this time," the voice of the void spoke, its resonance like the low hum of the cosmos. “When you return, you shall need to extinguish only a trivial bit of flames. I'd give you another week before you achieve perfection." The voice was now familiar to Emy as if the very fabric of space had recognized her presence.
"Give me two more days," Emy replied, her confidence growing around this entity of darkness. The being still hungered, an endless desire for energies—the true inverse of all life. Yet, time and time again, she faced this intangible force and returned. The darkness started to comfort her, not in a way that would lull someone to sleep, but like the exhilarating rush a skydiver feels before returning to the ground—an intoxicating high of helplessness.
Emy's body floated, but she couldn’t compare it to water. Nothing touched her except the nothingness and wisps of dark energies that held her within the space. She'd come to understand these energies were the essence of this being—endless and vast, yet lost and helpless.
"As the Cosmos demands it, so shall it be done. I should have known my limitless troublemaker would continue to push the boundaries of what was and what will be," the words resounded within her mind, each syllable echoing like distant thunder. "Your mind is cloudy. I see you've made a choice."
"The strongest path seldom follows the smoothest trail," Emy responded, attempting to muster what could only sound like a Buddhist verse.
"A sacrifice. One made to further the inevitable. Dare I see you trying to mimic me?" it responded with a challenge in an amused and menacing tone.
"To mimic is to admire. I think I heard that in a lecture once," Emy returned to her normal voice. "Advice was given; I just chose to accept it," she said, maintaining the conversation style that had yielded the highest success in learning from this creature—a blend of Professor Williams's teachings and a touch of flattery.
"This is only the first of many. Prepare yourself to be strong enough to break the chains that may bind you, for without distance, there is no growth," the entity spoke again, and a force pressed on Emy's body as light dawned again. "Good luck, little one."