by Mark Russo
The fiery monster cast another lightning bolt at Vaim. His body flew high above mine and past it.
I rolled my head but did not have enough space to see where he landed. The idea of standing increased, but I failed once again. I lifted my body a bit and laid on my elbows.
Akko unsheathed his sword and readied himself to strike. He jumped into a temporal series then out of it. He swung his blade, and the burning fiend disappeared and reappeared behind him then attacked, but this time, Akko disappeared. They soon became two streaks of light, and following their fight became impossible for my eyes.
My head felt heavy from watching them, so I lowered my gaze.
Vaim appeared again and jumped at what had once been my friend. He rapidly threw punch after punch into the flame.
Maria backed up a little then charged, moving so fast my eyes almost crossed. Her deadly frame expanded and wrapped around Vaim.
He disappeared in a cloud of bright light.
The two seemed to keep on fighting inside the bubble of fire, but I could not see what was happening. My heart almost jumped out of my chest. I tapped into all the energy I could and got on my knees, but that was as far as I could get.
The ever-changing ball of energy twisted on itself, expanded then spat out Vaim.
He rolled a long way, ending by my side. We eyed each other. Some parts of his facial skin were burnt, revealing what lay underneath.
Maria returned to her human form and readied her blade. Her posture and demeanor did not match the person I used to know. She charged Akko—the first in line before her. Then she stopped, frozen in the onslaught position, but so did Akko, wielding his sword with both hands.
I tried looking at Vaim next to me, but I also could not move.
Above us, an enormous white light hovered with a noise I hadn’t heard in years—the noise of a large aircraft.
23
Vaim
“Vaim, it’s time to go,” was the message the not burnt part of my hearing systems received.
“Will there be space for Akko and Emma?” It seemed I could still communicate with the mothership, despite the damage.
“They have to stay here. I have plans for them.”
A magnet placed somewhere in the ship’s forward fuselage pointed at me, and my almost-compromised body lifted in the air as everything else remained completely still. I entered a circular metal duct, which led me to a large hall adorned with an immense table and numerous chairs.
“My calculations were wrong. I should have come earlier to your rescue. Please use the conveyor belt. I’ll repair your body, first thing.”
“What’ll happen to my friends?”
“Friends? You made friends? That is uncanny. Do not worry about them now. We have a lot to do now.”
I considered asking another question about Emma and the others, instead I went to the conveyor belt and sat. The device hummed as it slid along the wall. A belt exited the wall, secured my position, and we passed through several doors at an increasing speed. I reached a small lab, and the belt unbuckled itself. I stood and took place on what seemed to be a human operating table. I remembered having done that in the past when my body frame needed some improvements.
A large scanning device inspected my entire body, and not a second later, the mother was talking again. “We’ll have to replace your entire exterior layer. Do you want to stick with this humanlike frame?”
“I got used to this. We can use this template again.”
“Do you want to have the same face?”
“Yes, I’d like to keep that too.”
The same device I had seen seconds before returned to hover over me, except it swiveled on itself, revealing a short scalpel. It cut through my skin then sliced it in full. Once it removed that layer, many other devices performed repairing works, mostly in my facial area and shoulders. I tried not to look. It was not painful but not interesting either.
“Where are we headed?”
“We are going to test Valu’s plane-traveling device, then we’ll come back here. I’ll wait for you. Once you’re ready, come to the cockpit. You’ll meet him there.”
“What will happen to the merged planes instead?”
“I froze time on the main island. We’ll come back soon.”
“Okay. What about James?”
“He has something really important to do for the safety of his world. I’ll share all my plans, just not now.”
“I understand.”
The machines buzzed over me for a few minutes, then I stood and went in front of a mirror. I was naked. “I’d say I look exactly like before. I’m fine with this body frame.”
“I’m happy to hear, Vaim. Now go to the cockpit. We’ll see if we can make that apparatus work.”
I sat on the conveyor belt again and traveled through a different sector of the ship. I passed many corridors, hangars, and service rooms. It looked like the vessel had been expanded from the last time I was here. The belt clanked as the pinion behind the conveyor belt reached a specific spot on its rack. I got off and entered what seemed to be the new cockpit.
Vagras sat in a chair in front of a large table computer. When he heard me, he stood, approached me, and hugged me.
“You’re getting more familiar with human ways,” I said as I returned the hug.
“Was that a joke?” he asked, mimicking a perfect wide-eyed face.
“I’ve spent too much time with James.” I smiled but was unsure if I was doing it right.
“Come and see. This ship is amazing.” His voice squeaked like a little child.
“He was born here, Valu. He knows,” the voice of the starship said.
“Well, he did not see the planar displacer yet,” Valu replied, looking somewhere in the air above his nose. Maybe he thought she was there. He sauntered to the computer he had been sitting at when I had entered.
“Valu, we’ve discussed this. I can safely activate the displacer. There is no need for you to do it manually,” the mother’s voice rang loud in the wide room.
“I know, I know,” Valu said, squeaking again. “I just wanted to show this to Vaim.”
She did not comment, so I went to a smiling Valu and saw a complex digital interface on the bright screen he wanted me to see. It would have taken me minutes to understand what that was. I just nodded along as he rambled about this or that unbelievable feature.
“Okay, guys,” Alpha’s voice interrupted Valu’s stream of consciousness. “I’m ready. You might want to walk closer to the main windshield. I hope you might enjoy this.”
Valu nodded and whispered in my ear, “The Marcovians asked for a ship, then it turned out they already had one. Sometimes, she’s a real killjoy.”
“You got to work on the displacer only, uh?” I asked.
“I hope you’re aware I can hear you guys,” the mothership said.
“So, are we using this planar displacer or not?” he asked, leaning with both hands on the cold, large windshield.
“I’ve started it already.”
I expected to hear the noise of all propellers and thrusters pushed at full power or to see the outer world outside disappear as our speed increased, but none of that happened. There was a point before us where the sick green of the merged planes’ skies turned to a red crimson, as if another sun was setting. When we moved past that point, everything around us changed. We cruised along a burning red sky, below us, an immense valley with tall grass and some other forms of vegetation I had not seen anywhere else.
“Where are we?” I asked, looking above me, following what my friend had done before.
“This plane is called Aragalia. I assume your next question would be why we came here.”
“I’d like to know that, yes.” I squinted at Valu, but his jaw had dropped far too low for him to talk.
“We came here for a specific reason, to reestablish the separation of Plane K and Plane R.”
Valu and I turned and looked in the air above us, waiting for Alpha to contin
ue.
“Are you aware of the reasons that caused the planar collapse?” she asked.
“Akko said it was the Communion,” my friend said. “They destroyed the Tree of All Streams.”
“That is correct. Close to defeat, Vihkan and Kelm panicked. Thinking that would give them an advantage, they attacked Aeg and destroyed the tree.”
“There’s more to it, right?” I asked.
“That, again, would be correct. The planar merger influenced the general structure of the space-time continuum. We need to repair that, or most of the world in our multiverse will perish.”
“And how can this place help us?” Valu asked.
“Look outside, and you will know.”
When we looked out, I saw the largest tree I had ever seen towering probably a couple kilometers away. The ship slowed, and soon it seemed even bigger. From a closer distance, I could see how its branches and trunk moved like they were alive.
“I assume that is another Tree of All Streams,” I said.
“Correct. We’ll get a branch and bring it to the one in Plane K. There, Akko will know what to do.”
“Is Akko here too?” Valu kept his eyes glued to the natural marvel.
“He is. We’re healing his wounds now. He’ll join us soon.”
“How do we get down there?” I asked.
“We don’t. Just look.”
Among the odd world’s tall grass, a little six-wheeler rolled at a steady pace toward the top of the hill. In the distance, at the foot of the hills, creatures with many limbs and no other humanlike qualities seemed to monitor the situation. The machine Alpha had dispatched there reached the tree. The top part opened, revealing a long mechanical arm. It grabbed a moving branch then cut it clean off. I expected some reactions from the peculiar creatures, but they didn’t move more than they already were. The device carried back the piece of wood and soon disappeared beneath us.
“This is it? Was it this easy?”
“It wasn’t Valu. I’m controlling the guardians’ minds. They would fight us, and I didn’t want to kill them.”
After a moment of silence, the mothership said, “Okay, the rover is on board. We successfully gathered a piece of the tree.”
Valu clapped, but I did not understand that gesture.
“What’s next?” I asked.
“We go to the Aeg and let the rest to Akko.”
“Does that place still exist?” Valu wondered.
“Yes, and we’ll use the displacer again. It’ll be a minute.”
Valu and I, knowing what would happen, fixated on the outside. The ship swiveled. Valu grabbed the windshield frame to steady himself. Then we swerved in another direction.
I stared outside, waiting for the moment we would cross the borders of this world into the one we had just left. The line in the sky did not make me wait; the surrounding color returned to the washed-out green I remembered as familiar, but the area we were in was not. When the ship stopped, Valu and I looked at each other, but Alpha talked before we could ask questions.
“We have arrived. I’ll let Akko get off, then we can return to the islands and solve that situation with Maria.”
“Wait. I’d like to say goodbye to him.”
“Yes, I understand. I’ll have him with you in thirty.” I thought the mother’s voice sounded different.
And her prediction proved true; Akko walked through the main door half a minute later. His eyes were invisible, collapsed somewhere his skull, and I took that as a good sign. He strolled toward us, leaning on his stick on every other step.
“Are you hurt?” My intonation came out wrong.
“Nah, just a scratch. I’ll be fine. Happy to go back home,” the old marcher sputtered.
“May we meet again,” I said.
Valu kneeled and shook his hand, then Akko walked away.
He already had a foot out the door when he turned to face us one last time. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank Alpha.”
He snorted something, but I think he smiled too. Yes, he definitely did.
24
James
When we landed on the small island, I surveyed the area for anything worth looking at, but it was just too dark to see anything. I asked Vagras to ignite more luminous things I had thought useless until yesterday, and my eyes finally started working. We were at the foot of a large vertical crest—a wide spur of rock that hid a huge chunk of the sky on our left-hand side. On the other, gravel and rocks lay scattered for as far as the lights shone. I scanned the place again then opened my mouth to ask the former Mr. Sweet a question, but something stopped me.
A meter from my feet, the stones moved, rolling on one another at first until the speed increased. Soon, a whirlwind of minerals tore a hole in the ground double my height. When the phenomenon stopped, Vagras and I peeked in the sinkhole. On the side, we saw a flight of stairs plunged in the even darker depths of the earth.
“I’ve seen this before,” I said.
“Well, I surely have not.”
“Something tells me I should not go down there.”
“Hey, I carried you all the way here. We go down those stairs.”
I asked Vagras to lead the way, as he was the one who seemed more eager to explore the abyss. After we descended about ten tiny steps, I already could not see a thing.
The marcher on the Path of Mind expected my request and used his colorful balls skill once more.
I stopped to inspect the place. The sphere cast light over a seemingly endless flight of stairs carved in the raw soil of the flying mountain. “Why don’t you summon a double to see what’s at the end of these stairs?”
He didn’t answer and just did it. “There’s not much to see. The stairs end in an ample underground hall. I think there must be something we haven’t seen yet.”
“Wait a minute. Didn’t you say I had to see something? I thought you knew what it was.”
He turned to me and opened his arms. “It was just a vision. I knew I had to bring you here.”
“Whatever. Let’s just make it quick.”
We silently descended the rest of the way. At the bottom of the stairs, a large salon opened before us. Vagras’s light illuminated some of it, making the place look like an old-fashioned club, like I had seen many in Third Life.
“Are you sure this was the place?” I said with a grunt.
“This is where you should be right now,” a deep, disembodied voice uttered somewhere around me.
“Who is this?” I asked, ready to fire all my skills at once.
A couple loud stomps shook the room. What emerged from the darkness forced me to look much higher than I had expected. A tall and rotund humanoid lizard stood before us. Thick purple carapace covered most of the giant. His two yellow eyes peered at me. “Welcome, James. Vagras, thanks for bringing him here.”
“Do you guys know each other?” I glanced at a petrified Vagras. I rapidly faced the mastodon behind me again to see he hadn’t moved. “Who are you?” I barked.
“There is nothing to be nervous about.” He crossed his massive arms.
“I don’t know if you know, but we’re in the middle of something on the surface. I need to go.”
“Emma and the others are fine. Don’t worry about that.”
“How do you know everyone’s name?”
He chuckled with his wide and pointy head. “I know all I need to know.”
“Why am I here?”
“A little test, let’s say. It’s time for you to prove your worth, James.”
“As I’ve said, I don’t have time for this. F0ar more important things are happening now than your test.”
“No, that isn’t true. Have a look.” He gestured with his hand, and a large ball of light appeared from nowhere. Inside it, I saw an image of Emma on her knees with a few scratches on her arms and face.
“What is this?” I cried out as I approached the gleaming object.
“This is happening now on your islan
d. As you can see, time is not moving there.”
“How?”
“We froze it. Emma can’t defeat Vihkan and Maria. They are too strong together.”
“That is why I should be there!” Stones rattled around me.
“We have it under control. Again, look, nothing is happening.”
“Okay, let’s do this test. I need to go there too.”
“That is very good to hear.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m the leviathan of this plane.”
Behind me, Vagras dropped to his knees and bent his head.
“What are you doing?” I yelled at him.
“You are standing before a god, James. You should be more respectful.”
“Maybe you should learn a thing or two about respect before talking about it, Vagras.” I scrutinized the bipedal dinosaur; he seemed nothing like a god to me. “So, the test. We can start.”
“Very well,” he said as the image of Emma disappeared. “We will fight, but I won’t tell you what the prize is. You better win.”
“How do I know if I won?”
“You’ll know.” He dashed toward me as quick as lighting and hit me with a hook right in the middle of my jaw.
My body flew through the air, and my ears rang. I landed on my left shoulder and bashed my head on the floor. For a moment, I thought I would faint, but I inhaled deeply a couple times and avoided it. “You broke my shoulder!”
“Come on, James. You can heal your body. You’ve done it already.”
While dealing with the excruciating pain, I sputtered a simple, “When?”
“You eliminated an entire Marcovian tactical squad. You could have died that day, but you didn’t.”
Those words acted like a switch in my mind. I had forgotten about what the leviathan was referencing. My skin turned to stone first, then I stood to find all my wounds and broken bones had healed.
“See? That was but a stroke on your face. Let’s try something different.” He jumped at me again. While he was airborne, he seemed larger than normal. When he got into melee range, he grabbed me with both hands, lifted me from the floor and tightened his grasp. His eyes stared straight into mine. “You know you can get out of this, James. Don’t you?” He clenched his fists tighter around me, but my stone body did not bend or crack.
