White Soul

by G L Rathweg

  “Good and that’s our queue. Let’s bounce Jecha!

  “All right boss!” The giant frog replied, in a deep monstrous baritone.

  Then the massive Kaiju frog jumped, and I screamed.

  “Fuuuuuuuuuccccccckkkkkkkkkkk!” I cried, for I don’t know how long as we rocketed up into the stratosphere of the Spirit World.

  Well, not actually to the stratosphere, but we went really high really fast. We went so high that the apex of our leap took us into the puffy pink clouds. As I was screaming I did notice how the Spirit World’s blue sun shined off the frog’s multi-hued green skin, making it sparkle like millions of emeralds. It was beautiful and I promised to couch the memory for another day, as the apex of our leap was over and we went streaking back down towards the earth.

  “Would you please stop screeching like a little girl. It is hurting my ears.” The massive frog rumbled. His voice so deep it felt like it was echoing through my entire being.

  “Yes, my good Jecha is right. Your screeching is annoying.” Kumwa said, agreeing wholeheartedly with the giant, Jecha.

  I clapped my mouth shut and stopped screaming embarrassed by the way I was acting, but still scared. Jecha sailed down through the sky and we came down miles away from Ja Cheongbi’s island. I could tell because I saw it in the distance as we fell. We landed in the middle of a beach but before I could discern more, Jecha had leaped again and my heart was in my throat once more. This continued for the next hour or so and I got used to the leaping Kaiju. I began to enjoy the ride more than fear it.

  By the time we landed at our final destination I felt like an experienced Kaiju frog rider, if that was even a thing. Jecha had finished his last leap into a giant crystal-clear lake in the middle of a circular valley surrounded by mountains. Once the water settled down Kumwa leaped off and gestured for me to follow. I watched him leap off the two hundred and fifty-foot-high frog and coast to the water below with the lightest of splashes. So light that the water didn’t even wet the top of Kumwa’s foot.

  “Go on boy.” Jecha said, but it still came out as an almost roar.

  He emphasized his point by tossing his head and launching me after Kumwa whether I liked it or not. I hit the water with a flailing ungraceful belly flop that hurt like a son of a bitch. It knocked all the air out of my lungs through what felt like my back. I was a few feet below the surface before I caught myself and flailed my oxygen deprived limbs for a minute. Before breaking back through to the surface.

  If this was how things were starting this training was going to suck some real nasty, stinky, swamp ass.

  MEANWHILE BACK IN THE HUMAN REALM…

  “Steve I’m soooooooo bored!” Dave whined.

  “Mmhmm.” Steve replied.

  “What mile are we even at? We’ve been doing this for hours and you won’t even let us stop and look at Ms. Parker! You suck Steve!” Dave said, the whine even more pronounced.

  “Mmhmm.” Steve replied.

  “Mile twenty-six no shit? We’ve actually almost done a marathon, not bad. It’s time to eat another one of those Celestial Grapefruits. Can you believe that there is even one of those trees here?” Dave asked.

  “Mmhmm.” Steve said, stopping the run and immediately beginning up downs with jumping star squats.

  “I mean, those things are super rare. To think that his grandma had one of those growing in the backyard this whole time. What are the chances of a coincidence like that? And not only that, how are there all these freaking demons around? Where are we, at like an epicenter of elemental power? Or maybe a ley line of the earth? Oh, what about a nexus to the Spirit Realm or something?” Dave mused, excitedly.

  “Mmhmm.” Steve replied, still running but making his way through to the backyard and to the Celestial Grapefruit Tree now that they were back at home.

  Once in the backyard, they went to the tree to grab one of the brightly glowing white fruit. They paused for a second to appreciate it then plucked it from the tree. All the ones from the earlier pile had been consumed. A few deft movements peeled the fruit revealing the delicious pale glowing ruby red meat within. With each bite the power in the Celestial Grapefruit filled Hiro’s physical and mental energy, reviving it back to full power and giving him a boost to his Ki.

  “Man, those are fucking delicious. If I had that when I was a Cultivator I’d definitely have been a Sage or more.” Dave said.

  “Mmhmm.” Steve said, dropping down and beginning pushups to restart the workout cycle yet again.

  “I feel like I can do anything! Damn these things are potent! Hey, let me drive now Steve, I wanna go fast!” Dave called, in a mildly manic and extremely enthusiastic tone.

  “Mmhmm,.” Steve replied, hopping up and beginning to run again. This time moving a lot faster than before due to the boost in Ki energy from the fruit.

  “You’re so stingy! Well, if you’re going to keep driving step it up.” Dave said.

  “Mmhmm.” Steve replied, picking up the pace and turning the run into a full-on sprint.

  “Woooooohooooooo! Let’s go!” Dave cheered, as they sprinted off into the moonlight, body glowing slightly in rhythm with their run like a metronome.

  BACK IN THE SPIRIT REALM…

  “That’s it. Good, good, keep it going, just like that.” Kumwa said, encouragingly.

  I was currently balancing on a razor thin Ki reinforced rope strung over a stinking morass of bubbling muddy swamp goop. Contrary to what I thought was going to happen, Kumwa was a really good teacher. He was patient, understanding, and had a real knack for explaining things.

  While the training had been tough, so far it wasn’t as bad as the waterfall and Ja Cheongbi had been. Even if I had exchanged beautiful naked half beast half women and a tropical paradise for a shit ton of frogs and a disgusting swamp. Training with Kumwa was worth it.

  I had learned Tai Chi Chuan and superior focus or The Zone with Ja Cheongbi. With Kumwa I was learning body control and an ancient martial art called Subak. I hadn’t been familiar with the term as it was older than any of the ones practiced in modern times. We had been at it for about a day before I picked up the basic movements, strikes, and defensive and offensive stances. It reminded me of a cross between the videos I’d seen of the Korean style of Taekwondo and the Filipino style of Silat.

  Kumwa’s instruction was so patient and easily understood that I had mastered the forms the first day, and we moved on to the much more difficult body control part. While Ja Cheongbi’s methods were much more brutal, they had been effective. I had learned extreme focus and the Tai Chi skills, both of which helped me now. The Ki infused rope was a motherfucking bitch to stay on. For a few different reasons. The width of it being one of the least difficult elements.

  “Hold, here comes another gust.” Kumwa warned, from his comfortable wind covered position by a warm glowing fire.

  This was the most difficult part of the training. The wind gusts came down at forty to fifty miles per hour and sent the rope bucking and flying around like a bucking bronco with wings, a Pegasus Mustang so to speak. I had my Ki activated around my body to help me balance on the rope and was already having a hard enough time with the two. Each time the rope bucked I flew off and had to flare even more of my Ki to control my trajectory to land back on the flailing rope.

  If I missed, which I had many times already, I would crash into the stinky mud. It wasn’t normal mud either. First of all, it was the color of night, like the dark of night. The smell was a combination of fart and the cloying sweetness of dying flora that was a perfect marriage of nostril destroying scents. The mud was also a Ki drainer and the moment you touched it your Ki began to get sucked away. I was deathly aware of this because I had experienced it firsthand and had already been saved quite a few times by Jecha.

  The way the mud sucked the Ki away was like a million needles hitting every bit of your skin at the same instant and drawing blood out. My body went weak and I screamed in painful spasms until I was able to focus and flare my
Ki enough to break free of the mud. I hadn’t been able to master this ability yet, hence Jecha having to save me on repeat.

  Luckily for me, this time the wind blew back the other way sending the rope back on a path that I could land on. I flared my Ki and it covered my body in a thin layer giving me added control of my body in air. Kumwa could move through the air at will when he used his Ki but he was a Master Martial Artist Cultivator and had been doing it for thousands of years. His Ki could flare around his body like a second skin as big as an out of control fire or condensed to just millimeters above his skin. This thin weak layer was the best I could do for now.

  And right now, that was just enough. I closed my eyes for a second and got into activated Extreme Focus and got into The Zone. I twisted and contorted my body in the wind-swept air, guiding my fall perfectly as I read the wind currents with my Ki covered body. A few moments later the toes of my right foot connected the with rope quickly followed by the toes on my left. I landed completely balanced and gripped the rope with my toes as I swayed chaotically in the wind.

  “Ho Ho! Not bad Hiro! Not bad at all! Keep going!” Kumwa cheered, jumping up and fist pumping from his position by the fire.

  The mass of frogs surrounding us chimed in as well, adding a melody of croaks and ribbits all encouraging me to keep going. At some point I had learned frog speech and their cries of ‘you can do it’ and ‘yes you can’ kept me going.

  I began moving forward keeping my balance and focus. My task had been to cross the five hundred feet of rope to get to Kumwa. I had lost track of how many times I’d failed, but this was the furthest I had advanced. The distance to my goal shrank foot by foot and soon I was two thirds of the way there, then the wind began again. My Ki covered skin had gotten used to the air currents changing and I could now sense when a gust was coming. I could tell this one was going to be a big one. I was so close yet so far away at the same time.

  “Fuck it.” I growled, loosening my grip with my toes and throwing my arms out to the side for balance and sprinting as fast as I could to the end of the rope.

  I could feel the wind building up as I sprinted, yet the goal closed in as well. It was going to be close. The rope started to sway more and more from the growing wind and my running steps. I was down to less than a hundred feet. I kept going, putting on a burst of speed to get there.

  The rope began to buck wildly like a living thing, a stallion beneath my moving feet. I rode it and didn’t stop running even as the rope began bucking up, going high and low in rapid fashion. It slid out to the side as it travelled, the wind gusts coming like waves of shotgun blasts. I angled my body on the rope and kept going.

  “Go Hiro! Hurry!” Kumwa yelled, his voice urgent and excited.

  I felt the urgency in his tone and could sense that the biggest gust of wind was about to come. Even the smallest of the frogs had gone to hiding due to the incoming gust. I glanced to the left the direction the wind was coming from and back to the end of the rope, now only fifty feet away and expended the last of my stamina and Ki energy. Then the wind came and the rope flew and bucked up and down, back and forth, like a crazy wave sign. In its final crescendo, the rope snapped taut then broke from the tree it was anchored to like a whip.

  If you don’t know what snapback is watch a video on it. But a brief definition is that when a rope or line of some sort breaks the pounds of pressure per square inch are multiplied by a factorial of a fuck ton. That energy is released in the form of the rope snapping back and that energy is enough to break holes in three-inch plates of steel. I knew this because I’d seen videos of Navy training and it looked like a mother fucker. My Extreme Focus however let me see the rope coming my way in slow motion, not at the lightning speed it was traveling at.

  At the very last instant I jumped and tucked my legs underneath me, rolling forward in a front somersault and then sailing just above the certain death coming my way. I watched wide eyed as the broken rope end cruised underneath me and I over it, then I turned my focus to my landing. It was then I noticed that I wasn’t quite going to make it over the mud pit. I’d have to start all over again and the mud would suck all my Ki out, hurting like a son of a bitch. I really didn’t want to go through that again. It sucked, really, really, fucking sucked, literally and metaphorically.

  I saw the remaining twenty feet to my goal and it could have been twenty miles, as I hit the apex of my jump and began to fall the ten feet to the soul sucking mud pit below. Extreme Focus added insult to the injury, and I watched it all in slow motion knowing this was another failure. I looked around as I fell to my crazy Spirit Realm surroundings, the frogs, Jecha, and last of all Kumwa. He was looking back at me, not with the empathy I’d expected from him but with hope and eagerness in his eyes.

  Confusion struck me at first. Why was he looking at me like that? Couldn’t he see I was about to fail at the task again for the umpteenth time. Anger started to well up inside me. I was getting pissed at everything, the training, Dangun, Ja Cheongbi, Kumwa, the Spirit Realm, every god damn thing. I was getting so mad I was at the edge of losing my focus and then it hit me. The reason Kumwa was looking at me like that was because he knew there was something I could do to finish the task. He was looking at me and waiting for me to figure it out.

  The mud was only seven feet away now and I had only seconds before I hit it and plunged into it’s inky grasp. I closed my eyes and calmed myself focusing completely on what I could possibly do to make it to the goal line. I ran scenarios through my mind at lightning speed and discarded them just as fast. Suddenly, I had it and knew what to do. I focused every last ounce of Ki and willpower knowing that whether this succeeded or not, I’d be hurting like a mother fucker in just a moment.

  My eyes blinked open with the Ki stealing, foul smelling mud only a few inches away. I flashed, disappearing and reappearing a few feet above the goal and safety. All my energy physical, mental, and spiritual was gone. The second my foot touched the grassy ground I fell collapsing in an exhausted heap of pain and elation. I had done it! Not only that, but I figured out what the actual point of this training was. The learning of Subak and body control were the side effects of learning the, well whatever it was that I had just done.

  “I knew you could do it boy!” Kumwa said, coming and helping me up to my feet.

  “Thanks.” I croaked, with a shit eating grin and then the world went dark.

  TRACK 14 – DANCE THE NIGHT AWAY – VAN HALEN

  This time when I opened my eyes I wasn’t surrounded by beautiful women. I was just lying on a cot next to the fire where Kumwa had been during my trial and still was now.

  “Oh man, what kind of monster hit me in the head?” I asked, sitting up groggily and holding my thumping head

  “Ah, the young genius has finally awakened from his Ki depletion induced slumber.” Kumwa said, a little too cheerily and way too loudly.

  This caused another massive headache. but it slowly began to subside as I caught my breath and soon, I was able to look around without cringing. The wind had died down and the sun had set. A bright burnt orange moon shone with soft light over the landscape, tinting everything in a light sherbet color. Kumwa was stirring something in a large pot over the fire and Jecha was lying a few dozen feet away, snoring loudly and contently.

  “So, what exactly happened? I remember seeing your face then knowing what I needed to do and disappearing then reappearing at the finish and that’s it. And how long have I been out?” I asked.

  Kumwa was pleasantly quiet for a minute while he finished stirring the pot and then carefully filled two large wooden mugs with the contents of said pot. He placed the ladle to the side and handed one of the steaming vessels to me. I accepted it with both hands. I brought the mug to my face and inhaled. It smelled of peppermint and honey. Blowing softly to cool the liquid, I took a tentative sip and grinned as the delicious taste filled my mouth.

  “What is this? It’s amazing!” I exclaimed, between mouthfuls of the delicious concoct
ion.

  Warmth started to fill me from the inside out. The pain from my headache and the aching in my body started to fade more and more with each successive sip. I could feel my Ki Soul refilling and my physical strength returning to me. Kumwa refilled my mug and then sat down across from me with a big smile across his face.

  “You remember everything until the Beongae Dangye then.” He said.

  “Beongae Dangye?” I asked.

  “It is the old name for it, you would call it the Lightning Step. It allows the user to focus his Ki on his feet and then use them to enhance each foot’s power when he moves. The Cultivator must have complete control over their Ki and mental focus.” He explained.

  My mind drifted back to the instant I figured out what I needed to do and made that desperate gambit. It had worked and I had been lucky. At the time I had remembered what the Spike knockoff had done to me back at my grandma’s house. My memories vaguely recalled a small red flash each time around his feet right before he moved to attack me. Somehow, intuitively I must have realized that was his Ki and I had decided to try it out myself.

  At the time, I only had a few points of Ki left in my bar and I know I expended all of it to try that move. I had gambled it all on a guess, but I had succeeded. It was a scary yet encouraging feeling that I had done it. Kumwa winked at me as if he knew what I was thinking, and I reddened a bit and ducked my head. He probably did know the crazy thoughts going through my mind.

  “This is Celestial Spirit Green Tea mixed with Elemental Affinity Spring Water. It will replenish your stamina and Ki. As to your previous question, you were at your utmost limit and you surpassed it, unlocking the Beongae Dangye. That act while helping you finish your task, drained your Ki and you passed out for a few hours. It is still night of the same day. How are you feeling?” Kumwa asked.