“I’m going to rise through human Cultivation. Transcend and continue through Immortal Cultivation. And then... Then I’m going to send that blue-glowing-Lite-Brite muther home with a rupture!” Josh, the forty-four-year-old divorced Chicago lawyer turned multiversal gallivanter, thrashed his hands around violently as he shouted to the sky and surrounding fields.

To obtain their Mind Attunement Item of Power, the Clone had sent Sen and Josh to the terrestrial moon Mwezi that orbited the massive pink and orange gas giant Baroo-7. The giant’s wispy pastel stripes dominated the sky and cast everything with a gentle orange-pink tint.

When they had first arrived, Senyak, the Immortal combat specialist, who’s strength had been reduced to that of mere mortality as part of his grandfather’s design to reshape his development, had looked around and found that...

They were on a small, unremarkable hill…

The tumbledown ruin of an ancient stone building stood around them, smack dab in the middle of exactly…

Nowhere…

Rolling fields of wild grains and thistles covered the countryside around them. Far off in the distance, on the rising slopes of a valley wall, they could see a large... castle?

Even with his enhanced sight, Sen wasn’t exactly sure from this distance. It was huge and white, surrounded by massive white walls with several grand, white towers.

With no other signs of civilization, and with Josh far too distracted cursing the Clone’s existence to actively participate, Sen decided to cross through the grass toward it.

They could have run using their Cultivation, but Josh’s tirade against the Clone’s existence was slackening in a way reminiscent of catharsis, so he must be finding the time to reflect from their slower pace… therapeutic.

Sen had learned a bit about his Bonded brother over the past week. Josh’s passion for life and compulsion as well as capability to always ‘win’ were a significant part of their growth thus far. The man was honest and would tell a person what he thought about them, good or bad...

But to be overly passionate about the deceptions others tried to manipulate him with would keep Josh from identifying his adversary’s true agenda. In fact, it was a given that tactical and strategic snares were generally laid to keep one from seeing their enemy’s plot in the first place. It was a lesson Senyak had learned the hard way at the hands of the genocidal harvester, Brundox. Now, Senyak’s eyes had been opened to many things he had previously ignored. Senyak now even realized that he had been taught this very point by his political tutors as a child. Sen couldn’t help but hear his tudor’s words echo through his mind as he walked, and he shared it outloud,

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity... Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then strive to win.”

Josh’s human’s mind was quick, and he could focus his considerable mental faculties to a photon’s edge when necessary. Sen nudged Josh’s intellect towards the enigmatic, universal constant that was his grandfather in order to get him to see the Clone’s acts for what they were. Acts of dominion and control.

Josh scowled. “You’re trying to calm me down with some kind of Sun Tzu-wholistic-mumbo jumbo while that mother—”

“Yes, yes, brother. Without question, we will send that incestuous fornicator back to the Polar Neutral Iteration with a crushed scrotum... But you must have noticed that the Clone’s timing was amazingly convenient... even for a being as callused as he... What could his motivation possibly be?”

Josh’s head snapped up demonstrating that he was already on edge at the continued existence of just about everything. His eyes thinned at Se. The built up fears for Sophie, the rage of being yanked from her on the verge of their connection all mixed together with his concerns and likely …guilt? The struggle of being the major cause for Sophie now being inexplicably metaphysically joined with Alysa erupted from Josh like vomit from a carsick toddler all over Sen.

“Spare me your platitudes, Ghandi.”

Josh’s fury rolled over the countryside in all directions as Sen took a silent step back and exhaled slowly. But there was no condemnation in the shorter man’s sympathetic expression. He could feel all of Josh’s turmoil through their Bond.

As if the shouting of the angry words served as a pressure release valve for Josh’s fading sanity, he regained intelligent thought and immediately dropped his head, squeezing his eyes closed. It was obvious he held himself in greater reproach than anything Sen might say.

After a moment, Josh spoke again through the puffed out cheeks of a forced calming breath. “I’m sorry, brother... You, of all people, don’t deserve my angst.”

Josh took another slow breath and clicked his tongue as he got onto Sen’s original subject.. “...Yes, his timing was inconvenient, to say the least. Much too perfect to be a coincidence...”

“I agree,” Sen nodded. “So, to reframe your own question—why did he do it?”

Josh looked up to the sky, obviously thinking seriously for a second before answering. “Well, he made it plain that he could care less about Sophie. Or me seeing her... He's made it clear that his objectives for us are just to rise through mortal Cultivation and to transcend to the Immortal realms of Cultivation…”

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“Okay,” Senyak agreed calmly. “So those are his goals.” He put on a face that was filled with an impressive short-bus-riding level of confusion. “...But what exactly did the Clone do to you, again?”

Josh rolled his eyes in exasperation. “...As if you weren’t right next to me…Fine! Sophie was right there Sen! My daughter! She spoke to me—you know, from Earth, in a completely separate iteration? How is that even possible?” Josh interrupted himself and then got right back on topic. “–And then, when I’m about to start figuring that out, that festering, pus-leaking, POS dad-blocked me!”

“Ah,” Sen breathed out as if he’d achieved enlightenment. “That’s right. Your daughter. That was a ‘dick move’, as I’ve heard you say, was it not? Still…” He trailed off thoughtfully, trying to bring Josh’s thoughts back around. “Why do you suppose he did?”

Josh blinked.

At Sen’s words, he paused in his next tirade. “Well… he must have pulled us out of there—likely at the very instant I had a real chance to communicate with Sophie to… force me to work harder to get back to her…”

Sen widened his eyes in faux surprise. “Fascinating. Now, knowing his goals and his intent through his actions, how do those two go together? I’ll give you a hint. We know who Sophie is to you, but what is Sophie to him?”

“Alright, jerk,” Josh chuckled, punching Sen in the arm. “I get it. ‘Quit bitching and look at the big picture’. That picture being, ‘what is Sophie to him’? Well, from his perspective, Sophie is… a tool to accelerate our growth…” Josh’s teeth clenched to the point of the grinding becoming audible as he threw his hands to the heavens in outrage.

Sen’s silence was one of confirmation.

“He’s separating me from my daughter as a motivational aid! That mother-frakker. Arrghhhh... I’m going to kick his sack right between his ears!” Josh stamped his feet impotently on the ground and pointed his index finger at the sky as he cursed the Clone for the next thirty seconds of their walk.

Sen smiled quietly as Josh went on with his tirade. He was sorry to have started the man up again... but it was necessary that he understood the political machinations of Sen’s family. It was better to grasp such things now rather than later, when it would be far too late.

“It’s been three hours, Sen. I know we’re getting closer because that castle looks more like a palace.”

~ But how much farther do you think it is?~

Josh half spoke his idea and half transmitted through their Bond. It surprised him at how normal their new form of communication had become.

Sen chuckled. ~Still farther, brother, still farther.~

Josh rolled his eyes and laughed quietly at himself. What should I expect? I basically asked how much longer our car ride was going to be.

However, the... ‘palace’ was significantly closer. Its massive walls and towers dominated the side of the valley they were walking in.

It reminds me of the Maharaja’s stronghold described in The Arabian Nights... Or maybe some fantastically elaborate north African Kasbah.

Tall, white spires, surrounded by minarets with pointed conical tops, reached over 300 yards into the sky. The larger ones were capped with broad, rounded domes tapering to needlepoint peaks. All shaded in faded hues of red, orange, and yellow, and were well placed under the sun’s warm amber glow, complementing the pink and orange striations of Baroo-7 above. Flocks of white and yellow birds, barely pinpricks at this distance, rode the thermal updrafts between and around the pinnacles. They moved with such freedom any onlooker would wish to be there soaring with them. Josh was no different.

After an hour, they came across a well-packed dirt road winding in the direction of the palace. Thirty minutes later, they could make out shorter buildings that formed a small town around the palace’s 100-yard-tall alabaster walls. Thin trails of smoke from cooking or other work fires rose around the outbuildings. Gray plumes of dust floated up from distant roads as vehicles moved along them.

Cultivated fields of neatly fenced and well-organized crops started to line the roads. Josh noticed a species like corn, along with wheat, soybeans, tomatoes, and several orchards of citrus-bearing trees. The field’s produce looked to be three or four weeks from harvest. The plants’ fruiting bodies were well-laden, but no discernible, vegetative head was visible in the center of the—

“Get a grip. The science is only going to distract you, Josh,” he muttered to himself.

Josh took a sip from the canteen Sen had been drinking from and put it back in his bag—or ‘Aspect Facet’ as Symbal, the anterior section’s quartermaster and unofficial despot of Hegemon-4, had called it. A mouthful-designation, which teenage recesses of Josh’s mind insisted on ignoring and insisted on dubbing it his ‘Bag of Holding’ despite conscious efforts to the contrary. The canteen slid back in, somehow. It also went… someplace in there and came out again when Josh called it. He would have to spend time with the Facet to learn more about how it worked. While the Facet was a convenient luxury to Sen, to the Cultivator, its workings were of no interest. The man had likely seen many things like it in the past. But it was still pretty cool to Josh.

It’s not just the Bag... I need answers for a lot of things. I know how to use Essence. But what is it really? Does Essence come from matter? From energetic solar ejections as particles or waves? There’s undoubtedly a spiritual element. Is life required? Consciousness? Could any intelligence on the Hegemon-4 see it or use it?

Josh had no answers for any of these questions. Yet, learning these things was vital to maximize his capabilities in regard to Essence use, increasing his Cultivation, and in short—getting back to Sophie...

As for that… Josh had a ton of questions about Sophie.

What is the link between Alysa and Sophie? How did I drag my daughter into this insanity? Is she in any danger? Alysa and Sophie’s Karma is obviously tied together... but across so many iterations? How exactly did it happen? How strong is it? Do I need to bring them together? Keep them apart? How much of this is my fault?

A bitter taste filled his mouth and a realization stuck to him like the tacky, trailing slime under a moving slug.

Most of this is my fault…

The questions and realizations were going to keep him awake at night until he found some form of resolution, because the Clone also knew Sophie and Alysa shared a bond in some way similar to the one Josh and Sen did. That couldn’t be a good thing. Or could it? For one thing, the Clone could likely answer all of Josh’s questions about whatever was going on with them. He also tended to reward Josh and Sen with some information when they successfully achieved his objectives.

Maybe I can get leverage that after we get this ‘mind fruit’ and complete our next Attunement.

Questions and worries aside, Josh was grateful to Sen for getting his brain reengaged to do more than rage-hating on the old blue bastard.

Sen’s mental agreement came through their connection. ~You’re welcome, brother. I’m wondering how Sophie and Alysa’s bond formed, as well. Forgive me for saying so, but it's a fascinating and intriguing conundrum.~

Josh conceded Sen’s statement with a nod before adding. ~I really thought saving Alysa would meet Karma’s price of balance.~

~As did I. One thing that you may consider is that perhaps it already has and this is Karma balancing the scales. Karma eludes even the greatest beings in the Multiverses’ capability to understand it. Your world had a saying that ‘god’ works in mysterious ways. Well, I don’t know about any God or gods, but Karma always has. The Clone can answer these questions just as any Immortal Fate Glancer could trace the ties of Reality and Balance between the two of them. But let me bring it up. You are too close to the problem to truly act in Sophie’s best interest.~

~You’re right, but… it’s hard...~

Sen smiled reassuringly. Then, because he could keep no secrets from his Karma-Bonded brother, particularly about Sophie, who was the motivating force of their Bond...

Sen added, ~It could be a testing of you. Of your resolve—your dedication and tenacity that was somehow instigated or fostered by Zenyak. Never speak of your doubts or concerns about it out loud... just in our Bond. I suspect that even the Clone cannot completely read our shared Karmic communications.~

Josh nodded in affirmation and continued walking toward the town, trying to take his mind off things that were beyond his ability to change. It would only slow him down from gathering the strength needed to get back to Sophie.

Recent emotional meltdown resolved; Josh got back to work to improve his Attunement. The Clone had said they would be able to form shields and other abilities with their Earth Attunement. Then, as usual, he was silent about how this could be done.

No surprises there!