Change is the baby of fear and excitement, and you never know which parent it’ll take after most.
For some people, the very idea of change is the worst thing in the world. After all, if they’re fine with how things are now, why would they want anything to change? It doesn’t matter if that change could potentially make things even better, either, as the uncertainty of change is a risk not worth taking.
For other people, the very idea of change is the best thing in the world. After all, if they’re bored with how things are now, why wouldn’t they want something to change? It doesn’t matter if that change could potentially make things even worse, either, as the uncertainty of change is a risk that’s worth taking.
And what better representation of change than the ultrapulses? These strange landmarks that randomly appear in the world at random locations at random times, each with their own unique structure and hidden contents. One ultrapulse had been an ancient ruin filled with traps and enough gold to turn a street urchin into a prince. Another ultrapulse was the underwater nest of a colossal serpent, and one was a brand new island that still exists to this day.
Each ultrapulse, either temporarily or permanently, changed the very landscape of Planet ULTRA’s surface. Sometimes, the ultrapulse would bring with it never-before-seen herbs and fruits that helped cure previously-incurable-diseases. Other times, the ultrapulse would tear a city in half, and a horde of never-before-seen monsters would run wild into the streets. Each ultrapulse was a complete roll of the dice, and it seemed that no amount of research could pin down anything concrete about them.
The adventuring and exploration industries exploded in popularity once the ultrapulses began to appear. After all, each ultrapulse was a new location that disturbed every map in print. Each one had a new layout and new secrets hidden within. There would always be a need for them to be explored and studied, and they would always serve as excellent stages for prospective adventurers.
And thus the kids of Kahe Ana’s Class G found themselves joining the ranks of ultrapulse adventurers, 10 years after their childhood vow to reunite and venture together once more in adulthood.
This ultrapulse in particular had opened a mere two weeks prior. It was a long range of mountains and caves that had risen from the ground outside the trade city of Radecross. Fortunately, the city itself was not damaged by the ultrapulse’s awakening, although access to the city from the east and south had been blocked-off by the new mountains.
Normally the southeastern train would take one directly to the city. However, the trains were now forced to stop at the penultimate station, and visitors to and from the city had to find alternative means to make the final twenty-mile stretch. Luckily for Zeo, he was able to hitch a ride on one of the shuttle buses that operated along that route that took him directly from the station to the entrance of the mountains.
There was a bit of a crowd in the area, but none of them looked like adventurers. They seemed much more like tourists as they posed for photos and chatted amongst themselves. Someone appeared to have set up a table to sell snacks, drinks, and t-shirts with the pulse mountains printed on them as well.
“I wonder if I’m early,” Zeo said to himself as he scanned around the area. He could feel his heart start to drum up in speed knowing he was just on the cusp of reuniting with his elementary school classmates. Were they already there? Would he even be able to recognize any of them?
Feeling a smile of excitement etch itself onto his face, he hurried in closer to the entrance to search.
* * * *
ULTRA PULSE
* * * *
“It’s quite crowded,” Kiria commented as she adjusted the luggage strap over her shoulder. “You’d think there weren’t any monsters in the pulse with how relaxed everyone seems to be.”
When no response came, she glanced over at Annabelle. The elven girl’s attention was fully devoted to the mass of people populating the outside of the mountain entrance, and not even a sliver was available to give to Kiria. Her bright pink eyes leaped from one face to the next in search of their target, like a dog in pursuit of a ball.
Kiria couldn’t help but giggle at the sight, knowing full well what Annabelle was up to. However, given Annabelle’s shorter stature compared to the average level of the crowd, it would likely be very difficult for her to succeed in her mission. Kiria, being taller, took the lead as usual, cutting a path through the bodies in search of the other members of Class G, if she would even be able to tell who they were.
Luckily for her, she didn’t have to.
“KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
Kiria suddenly found herself blasted by a 95-pound projectile, dead-center in the chest before she even knew what hit her. The impact nearly knocked her right off of her feet, but she was able to stabilize, and it helped that, rather than continue on its trajectory, the projectile kept still and latched onto her like a backpack. Or frontpack, rather.
As she felt a familiar scaly green tail smack against her leg repeatedly in excitement, Kiria smiled and draped an arm around the back of Reina, her closest friend in Class G and, really, life in general. “Hi, Reina. It’s nice to see you again.”
Reina angled her face up from Kiria’s chest, flashing her signature bright, bubbly smile. “I missed you! Did you miss me?!”
“Of course, Reina.”
The two girls were soon joined by Annabelle. “Hello, Reina!”
“Annabelle!” She released her hold on Kiria to offer a hug to the other. “Wooooow! You’re so pretty!”
Ten years later, Reina was still pretty much exactly the way she used to be. She was still the smallest of the girls, standing at only about five feet tall, she still kept her green hair in a messy bob, and she still liked to accessorize her tail with ribbons and keychains. Kiria found that fact comforting.
“Are you the first one here?” Annabelle asked.
Reina shook her head. “Nope! The boys are here!”
“Really?!”
“Well, Tyger and Cain are! I haven’t seen Zeo yet!”
The glee on the elven girl’s face deflated like a balloon, and her ears drooped low. “Oh….I see….”
Kiria patted her on the back. “He’ll be here soon, Lady Annabelle. Don’t worry.”
Reina quickly grabbed hold of the two girls’ wrists, spinning around to lead them towards the benches outside the mountain. “C’mon! This way! Come say hi to the boys!”
In stark contrast to the unchanging Reina, “the boys” absolutely had changed in the ten years since their days at Kahe Ana. Neither Kiria nor Annabelle would have been able to recognize them on their own as they approached. In fact, were it not for Reina’s “Guys, look! Kiria and Annabelle are here!”, they would have considered the boys complete strangers.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“It’s about time you showed up,” Cain greeted. He was the tallest of them all at a bit over six feet in height. He looked very well-put-together — freshly-shaven, blue hair kept professionally-cut, excellent posture. He was also dressed very nicely in a suit jacket, despite it being a strange choice of attire given the group’s plan to explore the caves inside of a mountain. But, that wasn’t exactly out of character for Cain.
Next was Tyger, who offered a simple “Yo.” Both Kiria and Annabelle found themselves taken aback by the transformation he had undergone. No longer was he small with a perpetual look of worry on his face, now he was tall and muscled, and there was an almost intimidating edge to his violet eyes. With the way he was sitting and the jacket with torn-up sleeves he wore, he looked downright thuggish.
“Hello, everyone!” Annabelle said with a bow of her head. “It’s so good to see you all again!”
With a grunt, Tyger stood up from the bench and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “We goin’ in yet, or what? We’re already twenty minutes late.”
“We’re still missing one,” said Cain. “Would you like me to teach you how to count?”
“Agh, piss off.”
“So we’re just waiting on Zeo then?” Annabelle inquired.
“He said he was taking a train, correct?” asked Kiria. “The pulse cut off the southern railroads, so it’s understandable he would be a bit late.”
Tyger growled to himself, or attempted to at least, but the entire group very clearly heard it. “Doesn’t he live the closest to Radecross outta all of us? That ain’t an excuse.”
“Chillax, Tyger!” said Reina, her mood completely unfazed by Tyger’s agitation. “He’ll be here soon! Then we can go explore the ultrapulse!”
“Just ignore him,” Cain chimed in. “This buffoon showed up two hours early. It’s his own fault he’s gotten antsy.”
Kiria raised a brow. “Two hours? Why?”
“A hero’s always on time!” To emphasize his point, Tyger pounded his fist into his chest. “Bein’ late and holdin’ people up is unacceptable! That’s villain shit!
Reina exploded into a giggle fit over the dramatic pose, mimicking it. Cain, on the other hand, rolled his eyes. “You’re still obsessed with superheroes? Has ten years actually passed, or am I just hallucinating?”
“You tryna start somethin’?!”
“Stop it, you two.” As the warning escaped Kiria’s lips, a feeling of familiarity pinged within her, and caught her off guard. “Just be a little patient.”
Luckily for the group, they didn’t have to wait very long, as the sixth and final voice called out from behind: “You guys got room for one more?”
“Zeo!” Annabelle was the quickest to react, and comically so. The first syllable alone was enough to perk her ears up, and by the time the second syllable came, she had already spun around to face its source. And considering the fact that she hadn’t actually heard Zeo’s voice in a decade (pre puberty, even!), the instant recognition was even more impressive.
Okay, well, I suppose since they were already expecting him, it wasn’t that strange to immediately figure out that it had to be Zeo, but still.
The blond-haired, gray-eyed Zeo strolled up to join his fellow Class G classmates with a smile, which was matched by Annabelle and Reina as the two hurried over to greet him. The latter wrapped her arms around him in a hug, as she had done for all of the others, but Annabelle, despite wanting to hug him, couldn’t muster up the courage to actually go through with it. Poor girl.
“Looks like I’m fashionably late,” Zeo said as he counted five heads already present. “My bad, guys. My train had a little….hold-up.”
“H-hi Zeo!” Annabelle said, albeit barely audibly.
Fortunately for her, he had heard it. “Hey, Annabelle. How’ve you been?”
“G-good! You, um….you look great!”
“Alright, we goin’ in yet?” Tyger asked with a roll of the neck. “I’m gettin’ hungry.”
“Ooh, me too!” said Reina. “There’s this really cool-looking restaurant in the city! Let’s hurry before they close!”
Kiria leaned over to pick up her and Annabelle’s luggage from the ground, slinging the straps over her arm. She then looked over at Zeo, and nodded her head towards the entrance of the mountain. “Lead the way.”
“Huh? Me?”
“You’re the leader, aren’t you?”
With a smile, Zeo replied, “Right! Let’s head out, then, guys!”
* * * *
ULTRA PULSE
* * * *
“You kids heading inside the pulse?” asked one of the guards standing outside the entrance to the mountain.
“We’re not kids!” Reina responded with a pout and a grumpy flick of the tail.
The guard chuckled. “My apologies.”
“Yeah, we’re heading inside,” Zeo said, answering the question. “Is that a problem?”
“No, no, nothing like that, just offering some information. The mountain’s made up of a bunch of tunnels. If you follow the ones lined with yellow paint, you’ll get to Radecross. The other tunnels go deeper into the mountains, and haven’t been fully explored yet, so be careful with those.”
Kiria nodded. “Thank you.”
“There are monsters inside the tunnels as well. Can you handle yourselves in a fight, or would you like a guard escort?”
“Yeah we can fight. Who the hell do you think we are?” spat Tyger, clearly insulted at the offer.
Zeo patted his hands against the sword scabbards strapped to the back of his waist. “I think we’ll be okay. Thanks for the offer, though.”
“Very well. Good luck, and stay safe. Feel free to call for help if you need it.”
With a few nods and thank-yous, the group walked inside. Rather than pure rocky caverns, the walls appeared to be crafted deliberately with stone, which was not uncommon with ultrapulses; despite having no man-made origin, many of their interiors gave off the appearance of being built.
There were torches lining the walls, although those appeared to have been installed after the pulse’s awakening to provide security and sight to travelers to and from Radecross.
“This is pretty cool,” Zeo commented. He pointed his hand upward to the higher regions of the walls, where strange symbols seemed to have been etched in. “Any idea what language that is?”
Cain and Kiria’s gazes honed-in on the specified region, but neither seemed to have an answer. “It doesn’t look like anything on record,” Cain stated. “Pulses often have unrecognizable writing; I doubt you’d be able to decipher what any of it means.”
“That’s so spooky!” Reina said. “Where’d it come from?”
At the front of the pack, Zeo noted that there were two different tunnels that split off from the entry room. He turned to face his classmates. “Looks like there are two paths forward. Which one are we taking?”
“Which one has the yellow paint?” Annabelle asked, moving over to Zeo’s side. When she took a look at both tunnels, she noted that both tunnels had the paint on them. “They both do. I suppose that means we can take either?”
“They must branch off further in,” said Kiria. “So it doesn’t matter which one we take.”
“We should split up and take both routes,” Cain suggested. “That way when we explore tomorrow, we have information on both tunnels rather than just one.”
Reina poked her finger into Cain’s temple. “Good idea, Mr. Smartypants!”
“Aw, we just got back together after ten years and we’re already splitting up again?” Zeo said with a clear tint of playfulness in his words. “How are we splitting up? Boys in one, girls in the other?”
Before Annabelle could protest that suggestion, Cain cut in. “I don’t care who I’m with, but I’d prefer not to have to babysit the crybaby.”
“Wh-?! Kiss my ass!” Tyger barked back.
“I didn’t even say who I was talking about,” came the smug response.
Kiria sighed and Reina laughed. It was the same old, same old with the boys, for better or worse. They would have to be kept separate for now.
“I’m gonna take the right-side one,” Zeo said, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder. “And whoever wants to come wi-”
“I-I’ll go with you, Zeo!” Annabelle hurried over to Zeo’s side before he could even finish speaking, nearly knocking him over as she bumped into him.
“Can you fight, Annabelle, or….?”
Knowing the answer, Kiria started to move forward to join them. “No, she’s not a fighter. I’ll guard h-”
“I’ll keep you safe then, Annabelle,” Zeo said with a smile that saturated the elven girl’s pale skin with splotches of pink. “I promise.”
At the exact same time, Reina grabbed hold of Kiria’s wrist, tugging her towards the left-side tunnel. “Kiria! Come with me!”
“Huh? But, I….” she looked back over to Zeo and Annabelle. While it had been a bit awkward to be usurped like she had been, it wasn’t really worth fighting. She knew Annabelle would be thrilled at the arrangement, and the group wouldn’t be separated for very long anyway. “Okay. Keep her safe then, Zeo.”
He saluted her in affirmation.
That just left Tyger and Cain to be distributed. “What about the boys?” Kiria asked, not really to anyone in particular. Whoever was willing to adopt them, I suppose.
Neither of the boys took initiative, but Reina suddenly swooped in to assassinate the awkward silence. She skipped over to Tyger’s side, green tail wagging back and forth with each hop. Taking hold of his hand, she said, “You can come with us, Tyger!” and led him over to the left-side tunnel. Cain then made his way to the other.
“Alright guys, guess this is farewell for now!” Zeo said, waving over at the opposite trio. “If you run into trouble, just call out and we’ll come running, okay?”
“We ain’t the ones who should be worried!” Tyger replied.
“Yeah!” Reina added, sticking her tongue out. “We’ll race you to Radecross! Loser has to pay for dinner!”
Laughing, Zeo fired back. “Oh you’re on!”
And so the six members of Class G began their first ever exploration of the Radecross ultrapulse. While their goal for this first trip was simply to make it to the city on the other side, and their actual exploration would come the following day, it was still their first taste of adventure after making good on their ten-year pact. While some things had changed in the decade that had passed, comfortingly, others seemed to have stayed the same.