His head and mouth hurt... and it was really, really dark.

Blood had run down and crusted over his maw and onto most of his chest fur. Anak cycled Essence to enhance his eyes and help with the headache that was trying to claw its way out of his skull. The last thing he remembered was slamming face first into the bambooyan pillows...

And then nothing.

Leaning to the side, Anak spit out a slimy dark clot, several broken teeth, and what might have been the tip of his tongue. As their Essence flowed, his thoughts steadily cleared, and the waves of pounding pain receded.

There was something seriously wrong with RX. All the interior sensors, lighting, and controls were off. Anak didn't waste time trying to call out. Instead, he reached through their union and was honestly a little surprised at one of the things he found.

RX's battle frame was deactivated entirely. Its physical EM circuits had most likely been overloaded with a power surge. Additionally, RX was also completely cut off from their shared Essence pool. Anak absorbed Aura and shunted it into their system to test the limits of the interference. He focused his mind's eye and pushed hard through his Meridians to mobilize their available reserves. Equal to his effort, a storm of Essence raged through the tamarin's Meridians and swept up the considerable volumes sitting in their shared pools. A tidal wave of metaphysical strength swelled out! And when it reached RX...

...it fizzled into nothing, wholly dissipating into the surrounding paths of Reality.

However, as disturbing as all this was, none of it surprised Anak. Essence inhibitors, while expensive to obtain and challenging to make, existed. They were the tools of the very rich and extremely powerful. RX had made Anak sit through two complete daily lessons about them during his Holovid instructions. The big mech had justified Anak's passive torture via boredom, “Essence inhibitors are one of the few forces that could disable us boyo... You need to know about them.” Guess it hadn't been totally wasted time after all... Still, I'll never live it down if I tell him that.

Deactivated battle chassis and rich-guy’s toys aside, what did surprise Anak was the tiny sleeping entity sculpted out of golden glowing Essence currently nestled dead center in their joint Essence pool. It looked like a kitten with extra-long silky ears and was lightly snoring. It was so small that even Anak could hold it in the joined palms of his tamarin hands.

As Anak's presence sat over its pocket-sized form, the kitten roused sleepily. Seeing the ominous simian form looming over it, the kitten’s eyes widened in fright. Then, it recognized Anak and smiled. Anak smiled back, and the kitten settled back down to sleep over its paws. The snoring started up again immediately.

Even though Anak hadn't laid eyes on the minuscule creature before, he would never have trouble recognizing it either. The Essence of its substance was as familiar to Anak as his own. It was, in fact, his own because the kitten was RX's spiritual remainder. The part that had formed when they had united Anak's Cultivation with RX's mechanical being to become the hybrid creature they now were.

Anak reached down with a finger and lovingly scratched the nape of the kitten's neck. Its smile deepened, and it purred with its eyes closed. "I guess it's up to me to get us out of here, huh?" The kitten nodded its head without waking.

Anak patted its head one more time. "I'm on it..." The tamarin hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. The kitten seemed to rest more soundly, so Anak guessed he must have. Anak returned his focus to Reality and was back in the cockpit.

The golden tamarin organized his thoughts. The good news was that RX's Essence inhibition could be reversed by removing the inhibitor from physical contact. The bad news was that it couldn't be done from within the safety of the cockpit's adamite plates. Anak was going to have to go outside.

Nothing to it but to do it. Anak reached over and hand-cranked the leaver RX had made him promise never to use unless he had explicitly told him to.

Well... I’m taking your continued silence as consent to using it big guy. Anak looked around the cockpit. RX’s deactivated bulk raised no objections. The manual escape hatch in the rear of the dome ratcheted quietly apart to spill light and fresh air through the opening. It was just large enough for him to slip through with a tight fit. Blinking his eyes as they adjusted from the previous total darkness, Anak saw only a white bulkhead on the other side. Nimbly, he climbed hand over foot through the square door and stood half-crouched on the rear of RX's dome for a better look around.

They were in the back half of the room that reminded Anak of a large storage closet. A solidly built titasteel door opposite them. He and RX were separated from the door by wide security bands of hazy blue light spaced approximately ten cm apart. Dim lighting came from overhead via inset illuminators. RX’s frame sat on the ground in a deactivated posture. His lower graspers curled up to his chest. His upper graspers around his folded knees with his dome canted forward over the rest of him. The big mech was completely wrapped in a metal net made from two-centimeter-thick stands that created twenty-centimeter-square meshing. The joint of each strand met at a hub that housed a pair of green and purple lights flashing randomly.

Yep. Essence inhibitors alright. And whoever caught us isn't messing around either. The inhibitor's dissonance field made Anak's hair stand on end as he sat in the middle of a mesh section. The little tamarin was very careful not to touch any of the strands or central hubs.

A heavy braided metal cord ran from the tail end of the net through the security field and into a small but thick-walled metal box on the floor. This would be a continuous energy source for the circuitry that created the negative resonance inhibition. From his lessons, Anak had learned that portable inhibitors were powered by robust but ultimately finite batteries. Finite in that a conscious Cultivator could deplete the battery's storage with continued attacks of Essence cycling. However, with this cable providing continuous power, such depletion would not be an option. Seeing the whole picture, Anak knew he didn't have a hope of breaking RX’s contact with the netting.

That left only one option for escape. Anak would have to overwhelm the inhibitors with an all-out Essence assault. But before he could do that, he would have to get rid of the power source feeding the net. Only then could he deplete the inhibitor's built-in storage capacity.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

His path chosen, Anak nimbly shimmied down RX's frame and scampered through the security barrier, only singing the fur off his shoulders. Clearly, it had not been designed with golden tamarins in mind. Anak made it to the metal box and rapped his knuckles on it to dull thunks. Like the sounds of the long metal beams, city-dwelling spirit beings made the sky towers they loved so much with. This box was a problem. Anak had no independent ability to Cultivate when he and RX were physically apart. Once separated, like they were now, he was absolutely...well... mundane. This wasn't a surprise to Anak. Before they had paired, RX had been very clear about the limits they would each face in forming their union. And Anak had gladly accepted them. He and RX were family... each other's only remaining family. Anak would choose the same today. But faced with a titasteel cable that needed to be ripped from the superstructure of an interstellar ship or his friend was going to be tortured and killed... the youth would have given quite a bit for even one micro of his Cultivation-enhanced strength!

The braided cord was covered by white insulation material halfway from the cell to the power box. Then it led directly into the box through a hole only big enough for it. Anak could see no wall switches or floor pegs to deactivate the energy flow.

Worry clawed at Anak’s belly as he grabbed the cable. Well... getting closer hasn't revealed any obvious answers...

Even Anak's slim fingers couldn't slip through the metal box's housing to inspect for a release behind the cable's inlet. The teen scratched his head and started to do what he could. First, he tried to unscrew it. Nothing. Then he put his legs on the sides of the cable and futilely pulled with his entire body. He pushed it with all his tiny strength without success. Enraged at his helplessness, Anak even gnawed on the insulation with his needle-like teeth before his sanity returned. Not one budge or scratch from anything.

Anak’s tired, sweaty body leaned dejectedly against the metal box.

Giving up is not an option... but I'm out of ideas...

RX's unmoving frame gave no response.

Frustration ate at his mind and he glared up at the dark battle frame towering over him. Why did you pick me RX? I’m the unknown son of a humble man. Even he would have been a better choice than me...If he was here...

Anak straightened up and put his hand on the top of the conjunction box...he'd say, ‘Anak, I have told you a thousand times. Never give up on a problem until you've looked at it from all angles and have tried everything that seems logical.’

Anak looked back up to RX and sighed... Perhaps he wouldn’t have been much help either...The man never left the forest he was born in. Simple advice from a simple man. What help could he give us with life and death trouble on this ship that sails among the stars?

Anak swallowed and felt he was more than halfway toward mocking even his father's advice. But his anger at his own failure mounted on his feelings of helplessness and Anak couldn’t help himself as he shouted in his own head.

Look from all angles? Like this dad. Anak leaned around the box as the words echoed a sense of betrayal in his own heart—

And there it was! At the bottom back of the power box, a latch sealed it closed! From his new perspective, he could see the hinges that would flip the metal housing up and allow the cable to be unplugged! There wasn't even a lock securing it. The purpose of the metal box was merely to reinforce the connection—to keep someone behind the security bands from pulling the power cable out, not to stop a being who could get out of the security field!

Using all the strength in his forty-centimeter body, Anak pulled the latch up, and the steel lid popped open on its hinges. The little tamarin prostrated himself on the ground and quickly spoke prayers of thanks to his father and the rest of his ancestors for their wisdom. I'm sorry for doubting and... I miss you, dad... But right now, I have to save my friend.

Grabbing the metal cable with both hands, he leaned back and braced his feet against the metal frame of the lockbox. Pulling with his arms and pushing with his bunched legs against the large plas-steel plug and still it was a chore. Only after he was short of breath and had broken out in a new sweat did the metal tines slowly begin to slide out. Five long brass-colored prongs were slowly and steadily revealed. With a final tug, the tamarin had to catch himself as the head finally disconnected completely and clunked heavily on the deck plates—

The braying of an alarm filled the small room. Anak reflexively jerked his head from side to side and fled through the blue security bars before he scurried back into RX's dome. He frantically unspun the ratchet, closing the manual escape hatch and finally cutting off the oppressive sound.

The alarm was unfortunate but not wholly unexpected. This was a detention cell, after all. But it did mean that Anak was now working with a time limit. According to the holovids, most Cultivators would need up to three gyra of constant Essence attacks to overcome even a single one of the many inhibitors that now covered RX's frame. With the alarm going, Anak didn't have that kind of time. But that was okay, Anak wasn't most Cultivators.

There was a reason why RX had first noticed the little tamarin in his home forest: Anak could move Aura and Essence… A lot of it.

The youth dropped back into their link and scooped up the kitten with the long tapering ears that represented RX's soul remainder. Anak put the little animal made of glowing light on his shoulder and looked directly at him, "You better stay close to me. It's going to get noisy in here." Wide-eyed, the kitten nodded.

Anak reached out with both hands and began funneling Spacetime Aura through every surface of his body. The sheer volume involved exerted a tidal pull on their Essence reserves, and they shifted like terrestrial seas under the influence of a lunar cycle.

Anak let the Aura spin through his Meridians three times to achieve complete purification into Essence while he continued to absorb. The glistening indigo energy built up so fast that it started to arc in static discharges along his skin, attempting to osmotically diffuse back into Reality. Finally, Anak released the spinning Essence into their joint pool. The new volume stretched the reserve holding limits, and a grunt of pain escaped through his clenched teeth. He ignored it and repeated the process. Beads of sweat gathered on his furry brow while he continued to block the building flood of Essence from flowing back to RX and the inhibitors contacting his frame. Every muscle in Anak's body tensed. His head throbbed, and his Meridians seared from the stretch. Breaths came in ragged pulls through clenched teeth as Anak's Core spun like an elder dancing on the night of the dervish moon.

I... can... hold... a... little... more!

The converted Essence filled their metaphysical and physical spaces as the cockpit was radiant with Anak's lustrous indigo glow. This close to RX's remaining spirituality, Anak was absently aware that the kitten stared at him in stunned awe. Almost like a spirit being would view a titanic god that had just come down from the heavens exploding with power... Then the golden tamarin was at his limit and the floodgates burst!

Anak didn't hear his own roar of defiance or feel his fists clenched against his incandescent fur as he released the tide. Their Essence erupted into RX with the power of a solar mass ejection. The giant mech's battle frame was shining deep blue as it jostled up and down from the torrent that fried the inhibitors netting him and raced on to the ceiling in a purple pillar of spiritual fire.

Spent, his vision narrowed to black, the small tamarin collapsed into his impact chair, unconscious and drooling before the last of the net inhibitors popped and sent slender, acrid blades of rising indigo smoke to collect above.

The Essence comprising the kitten had dispersed back into RX's being when the first of the battle mech's internal displays cycled on. But Anak didn’t notice. Deep in his dreams. The small tamarin was already running hand over foot along branches behind his father's lead.