Metamorphosis

by Aer-ki Jyr

  But they didn’t require him to go at his maximum speed. He just had to keep a minimum, and it was a minimum he couldn’t do in base form. In Saiyan 1 he was stretched, but when he went Saiyan 2 the extra speed boost was enough to let him dance through the course with some measure of ease.

  So over and over he ran it, and each time he got better at it, given the fact that it was brand new. And what this course had that no other in the history of Star Force had, was constant momentum swings. Jason was having to start and stop, almost completely negating his momentum at each turn, and when doing so you got more out of finesse than trying to keep maximum speed to the target and then slamming on the brakes as hard as you could to reverse course and dash through and around the rings.

  Wilson was forcing them to be graceful, not overpowered, and it was working. Jason’s muscles were operating in sync at a level he’d never touched before, all based on movement rather than combat. The smoother he moved, the less energy it took. The less energy it took, the longer he could remain in Saiyan mode. And the way the course was set up, he had to maintain a minimum, meaning it wouldn’t let him slow down too much without getting stunned and slowed, then slowed some more until hundreds, if not thousands, of stings eventually ground you down until you fell unconscious.

  Jason knew better than to step onto that slippery hill, so he just adjusted to what he needed to do to stay ahead of the auto-targeting turrets that were covering the ground behind him with blue and green splatters…but the road ahead was clear, and that’s all he needed to worry about. The course would be cleaned before the next run, and there was no doubling back and running multiple loops. It was all one very long course from start to end, taking Jason more than an hour and 12 minutes to complete it previously and covering more than a square mile of Atlantis’s interior parks.

  Jason had wondered why Wilson had ordered the demolition of others to create this one, but as he moved through the course some 20 minutes into this session, he could feel his body almost glowing with liquid gold as one of his shoes gave out and ripped slightly as he redirected his momentum again.

  That made him roll his ankle, but he recovered quickly and babystepped through his deceleration before launching the other way off his good foot and staying ahead of the stingers raining down very close to his right shoulder as he went back up the ‘V’ trajectory and through the entry side of the ring that led to a short straightway up to the next one.

  Jason didn’t stop, instead adjusting to the torn shoe and looking at it as an additional challenge. When he got to the next reversal, he made sure to plant the weight of his last step on the good shoe, and in doing that he was able to keep most of his speed as the other one gave a little too much with each footfall, but it hadn’t disintegrated like Kerrie’s had last week. Part of him was still laughing at seeing her wipe out so spectacularly, but that just attested to how much momentum they were carrying with a combination of their mass and speed, and there was no way they could handle these redirects so fast while barefoot. The friction would be too much, so the shoes were a necessity, but the rest of Jason was only covered in a pair of skintight shorts.

  A shirt would have only slowed him down with the air drag, and the others had learned to shed as much clothing as possible to goose their times. Jason’s run at a new personal record was shot now, but he was still going to finish it out if his shoe held up enough, because he was having fun with it now…for it was a new challenge spontaneously thrown at him, and one he had never faced before.

  So he kept going, out of sync because one foot landed softer than the other one, but he adjusted to it by eating up his speed cushion that he’d developed earlier, but he was still staying just ahead of the stingers most of the time, while taking a few brushing hits here and there that numbed the skin where they made brief contact on his flailing arms.

  He wanted to use Essence to denumb them, but didn’t want to break the trend he had going. He made it another 26 minutes, feeling rather good about himself as he happily struggled to stay ahead of pace with the shoe liability…then something snapped. But not in the shoe.

  Jason shot right through the next ring rather than going behind it and coming out the correct way. He ran out of bounds and slowed to a halt as the stingers pelted him with dozens of shots, but he held up a hand and blocked them with a bioshield until the control room monitoring the runs saw his raised hand and deactivated the course.

  Jason stayed put, feeling good, but knew something had happened. It was like a door had just opened and was waiting for him to move through.

  The trailblazers stayed on his knees as he looked at his arms. They were almost throbbing, but not with blood flow. His Saiyan 2 state was still active, but not overtaxed. The surge was…something else.

  It took him a moment to realize it was his Essence. It was pushing, but not moving. It wasn’t an Essence Rush, otherwise he would have been literally glowing in his enhanced vision. He checked, not seeing anything, but he could feel it. All over his body, as if he was inflating too far. It wasn’t something he had experienced before, but he knew it for what it was.

  This was a plateau break, of some form, the question was what did he need to do?

  Jason thought about it, but his instincts told him to feel, not think, and Qui-qon’s similar advice to Anakin surfaced from memory.

  He closed his eyes and tried to smooth out his body, feel the pressure where it was and wasn’t, and move with the same grace internally as he had been physically. Jason became as still as a statue for more than a minute, then he finally found it. The relief valve wasn’t a spot in his body or mind, but rather a state he had to get his whole self into simultaneously. As if he was various shades of blue and purple, but he needed all of him to turn orange.

  That was a bad example, but all his mind could manage at the moment. He didn’t know how he was adjusting his ‘color,’ but when he did his Essence drained from him…except that it didn’t. No Essence Rush occurred, but he felt the pressure lessen…and for a moment he thought he was breaking through into a Siphon, because he felt more Essence entering him from somewhere, but rather than a volcano shooting it out it felt more like a calm river cycling through him…and yet there was still no Essence Rush.

  Jason belatedly realized that was because it was natural rather than forced. Essence Rushes must be when you made your Essence go where it wasn’t supposed to. This felt like his Essence needed to move, but the Neofan had mentioned nothing of anything like this.

  After going through so many unknown psionic triggers, Jason had plenty of experience with situations like this, so he wasn’t afraid or panicked. He let the pressure bleed out and put as much effort into it as was required, and as he did so the internal ‘glow’ he had felt before, that ‘liquid gold’ sensation, mushroomed into something else entirely and consumed his entire body in a wave of coolness that quickly enveloped him and his consciousness.

  Jason tilted over, hitting the floor unconscious as he spontaneously blacked out, with Wilson being alerted as medtechs were dispatched to his location on the course.

  Vitor-003 had just started his run on the obstacle course. The cleaning machines were already clearing the path ahead of him rather than waiting for one person to finish the entire course. That would have been a waste of time, so once the ‘washers’ had enough of a head start the next person was sent off on their run, with multiple trailblazers typically being on the course at the same time, though they never saw each other.

  Vitor was staying ahead of the auto-targeting turrets easily enough, and had gone a few minutes into his run when he got a telepathic warning from Wilson, saying that Jason had gone down near to his position.

  The trailblazer didn’t hesitate to leap into the air, violating course rules, and flew to where he was sensing Jason was. His mind was easy enough to find, for it was buzzing with static, and several medtechs were nearing him but not there yet.

  Vitor got there first, landing next to Jason and immediately realizing he w
as unconscious. He put a hand on his arm and used his Haemra to sneak a peek at what was going on inside, for Jason’s mind was blocking his telepathy.

  He hacked in using his healing psionic while also using his Ikrid to try and get at his mind…but that’s not what happened. Whatever was happening to Jason leeched into Vitor, and he pulled back immediately, letting go of his friend and jumping back half a meter.

  But the Malzahar-like plague stuck with him, expanding within his body and making his Essence move somehow. It didn’t feel damaging, but Vitor immediately tried to stop it, surging his Essence to push it out of his body and succeeding…but as soon as he stopped a piece of whatever it was within him surged forth again, spreading faster this time and making him feel like he needed to let it happen. Some pressure inside him was being relieved, and his instincts told him to both fight it and let it proceed.

  Vitor tried twice more to stop it, then gave in and let it go as his attempts seemed futile and he began to crave it even more. He had no idea what it was, but as his vision started to get blurry he saw the medtechs arrive around Jason just as he collapsed to a knee.

  “Don’t…touch,” Vitor said, just before blacking out a meter away from Jason’s feet as Oni-081 dropped down from the sky beside them.

  “What’s happening?” she demanded as the medtechs held back, pulling out secondary equipment rather than the regenerators at Vitor’s warning so they could scan from a short distance away.

  “Vitor said not to touch them, then he collapsed as well,” a Calavari medtech said, holding three different instruments in his hands while rubbing his forehead with the other in confusion. “Mental activity is high, but their bodies are reading as normal. Can you telepathically scan them?”

  “Can’t get through. They’re sealed up tight. I’d have to touch them,” she said, kneeling down next to Jason but keeping several inches away. “Any pathogens?”

  “Not on them or the air or the ground,” another medtech said, this one a Human, that was standing over Vitor.

  “What happened?” Oni demanded.

  “Jason went down and Vitor flew over. We just got here as he went down.”

  “Shit,” she said, knowing there was little she could do without touching them. “Give me that.”

  Oni telekinetically grabbed one of their regenerators and flew it into her hand, then she proceeded to mentally connect to it and reconfigure its myriad of settings, after which she threw it down next to Jason and watched as it sprouted legs and walked up onto his arm and settled into it.

  “What if the warning was to protect them?” a medtech asked.

  “The floor is touching them,” she scoffed as a holographic display screen popped up above it. “No reason it can’t in view mode. I’m not seeing any damage or interruption.”

  The now 4 medtechs there pulled out datapads and wirelessly connected to that regenerator so they could get more data, but Oni just kept staring at the hologram rising above Jason’s slightly heaving chest as nothing seemed out of place.

  “This doesn’t make sense. Their minds are jammed up good, but there’s nothing biological to trigger it. I don’t even see why they’re unconscious.”

  “They’re in rest mode,” the Calavari said. “Deep rest.”

  “Why are they still blonde then? They should be…”

  “What do you suspect?”

  Oni didn’t answer, instead mentally toggling the diagnostics to look at their Saiyan-specific cellular structure…then the Regenerator pinged a warning that the subject’s genetic code was being altered.

  “Archon?”

  “I see it,” she said, biting her lip as she thought. “Do any of you see a causal mechanism?”

  “Nothing,” another Human said, with the others shaking their heads in agreement.

  “What the fuck is going on, Jason,” she said, looking down at him, then over at Vitor…then she got a weird feeling from both of them, like a faint aura made of chilly wind that made her take a step back.

  “Get back further,” she warned, knowing without any data that this was Essence-related. She couldn’t see it emanating from them, but she could feel it…in a form she’d never encountered before. “It’s not biological. It’s Essence.”

  “Changing his genetic code?” the Calavari asked. “Should we stop this?”

  “Hold on,” she said, jumping into the air ever so slightly then disappearing entirely with an audible pop. The air around them jerked towards her location, then a moment later it pushed back the other way, knocking down one of the Humans and moving Jason and Vitor slightly as they were dragged across the floor a few inches from the air displacement as she returned from the Essence Realm.

  “There’s no one here messing with them. This must be internal. Let it play out for now. If it starts causing harm we can reverse it.”

  “Not if the rate escalates beyond the ability of the Regenerators,” one of them said as Wilson finally arrived, flying through the sky much slower than Oni had, but he dropped down fast enough a step behind her.

  “Essence related, but no visible exterior threats,” she reported as he walked by her and reached down to Jason, but she caught his arm before he could touch him. “Vitor said not to touch just before he passed out. Whatever this is may be contagious. I can feel a weird aura around both of them.”

  “Testing a theory,” he said, gesturing with his eyes for her to let him go.

  Oni frowned but relented, then Wilson knelt down and put his hand on Jason’s forehead and was silent for several moments.

  Oni tapped her foot on the floor impatiently, prompting Wilson to turn his head and look up at her.

  “And?” she demanded.

  “I think this is a limit break. It’s having no effect on me, but keep your distance. All of you may be so close that one can trigger the other with a taste of this.”

  “A taste of what?”

  “Another theory I’ve been working on, with no data to back it up,” he said with his hand still on Jason. “I’m feeling a heavy dose of Delayed Training Effect, intermixed with non-rushed Essence. I can feel it swirling inside him, with no resistance. This may be a natural ascension.”

  Oni knelt down next to him, but kept her distance. “And why would I not want in on it?”

  “Remember Jason’s breakthrough to Lachka?”

  The Archon winced. “Point. So we just let this run its course? They’re still in Saiyan mode, probably level 2. They’re going to burn up if it’s stuck on.”

  “Wait and watch,” he said, flicking his chin behind her, “from over there.”

  “Yes, Daddy,” she said sarcastically as she retreated 3 meters further back then sat down on the floor cross-legged as she tried to break into either of their minds for even a glimpse of what was going on, managing to get a few wisps of buzzing from them over the following minutes as more and more trailblazers arrived from elsewhere in Atlantis, with Davis being the last to get there as they were all surrounding their two downed brothers who Wilson had laid out into less crumpled positions, but otherwise wouldn’t let the medtechs move them further.

  “What’s happening?” Davis asked.

  “Something significant,” Wilson said with an eerily epic voice. “And something beyond us. They’re breaking trail again. All we can do is follow and watch…”

  7

  July 1, 154930

  Poolion System (Home Two Kingdom)

  Turron

  Paul was on the beach again, but not sitting. He was dancing through the sand, making a rhythm out of various movements, most of which were combat related along with a few connective poses. He was moving quickly, but well within his control, and the Archon had learned that this helped him think more freely than sitting and observing.

  Or to be more precise, it helped him access his instincts better, and as he flowed through the movements his mind wandered a bit, with many tangents popping up, such as modifications to the Excalibur’s engines that he had been working on in perpetuity,
border tweaks along the Hadarak front, microbiology lessons he’d been digging into deeper as he searched for a hidden link to adaptation in the structure of his own body…and many more things. They would pop into his mind and out, and after a while he almost forgot he was moving as his mental programs handled most of it with only a little input needed from his conscious mind.

  And once again he slipped into it, with his view of the world shifting into multiple layers. Reality was still there, visible, audible, and tactile, but over top of it was an aery film that he could touch if he wanted to make his body burn again, but if he simply observed it didn’t do much to him. He didn’t see it with his eyes, but rather as another Pefbar, yet his ability was limited by range and focus. There was so much information he couldn’t process it all, so he had to be choosy, and again he focused on his immediate area while occasionally pressing his vision further out in a cone to see beyond the 6-7 meter spherical range he had.

  So that’s it, he thought as an epiphany hit him. His normal vision couldn’t zoom, but his psionics could, particular Pefbar when he thrust the field all in one direction to get greater range. I’ve been training for it in another fashion, and it upgraded my actual sight. Fascinating.

  Paul tried to not get excited, for every time he pressed too hard or got emotional this second layer would slip from him. Instead he simply touched the biosensor on his wrist with his opposite hand as he continued to dance, placing a time marker on the recorded readings so he didn’t have to mentally do it. He needed to keep his mind on track and get as much experience with this…whatever it was…as he could, so every second was valuable.