Aetheran Child (36 page)

Out of nowhere, waves of plasma hurdled in and the temperature soared. The walls disappeared and Lexan was on the top of a star. Not the Aether Star, but another smaller star that had a lower temperature and shone orange instead of yellow. He smiled and let his hands dip into the plasma.

He expected to feel a watery substance, but instead he felt the plasma inch away from his hand and disperse. The substance resembled a highly charged cloud of plasma with an energy of its own. The boy sat down on the board and dipped his feet into the plasma. He felt the temperature rise, the clouds swirled. Lexan tried to propel the board by the use of his legs. And yet again, to his surprise, he felt the board move when he kicked his legs against the clouds. The clouds solidified under the pressure of the kick and pushed him forward.

The board accelerated, and its rider tried to hold his balance. It pushed up and floated down over the invisible waves of energy. Whenever the board fell too steeply, a cloud of energized particles swept over Lexan, the sensation was indescribable. The cloud-like substance burned hot, while outside, above the sea energy, the cold space pressed down upon the boy.

He built up speed to jump over a particularly large wave that surrounded a dark spot. Lexan leaned forward and the board accelerated, splitting the clouds in two and creating more waves. Finally, he was fast enough to jump over the wave. The front of the board dipped down, and then launched itself across the wave. Lexan ducked down on the board and let it fly up into the air. A spray of particles washed over him and then disappeared behind as the board flew above the surface again. The hot wave turned into a cold breeze, the boy looked down and saw the turmoil of clouds and energy below. Bubbles of particles boiled, and dark spots covered the area. He must have been ejected kilometers into the space.

The Aether smiled to himself and felt adrenaline rush through his body. Never in his life had he imagined he would surf on top of the Sun. And finally it came, a solar flare.

The darker spots angrily pulsated until a stream of pure energy unleashed itself from the enormous fireball. The flare targeted Lexan and directly hit the bottom of the board. Its rider could not hold on, and plummeted down into the fires, the board flew elsewhere, far away. He screamed as he fell and accelerated incredibly. He imagined the pain he would feel when he would hit the surface head on.

He closed his eyes in anticipation only to feel the energy clouds wash over him. He dipped deep down, hundreds of meters bellow the surface. The environment felt like warm water. The clouds lifted him upward and he “swam” or rather “fell” toward the surface. Yet before he could swim across the surface and look for his board, another solar flare pushed him into the darkness. This time, he felt the flare strongly push him on his back, push him very harshly. The pain seemed to amplify with the heat. He screamed in pain and blacked out. Seconds later, he opened his eyes, conscious again, floating in the hot plasma face down. The clouds bubbled into his face. He coughed and turned over, looking up into the sky.

The stars shone brightly and the boy enjoyed the few seconds of peace. Sun Surfing has exhausted him even the few minutes he engaged in it. His body slowly progressed lower under the surface, but the puffs of energy lifted him higher.

“So, what's your business with me?” A voice asked, Lexan turned on his side to see a girl in a black suit, similar to his. She was laying down on her Sun Surf board, his board was next to her.

He reached up for it and laid down.

“You seriously have no idea who I am, do you?” He smiled, Both of their avatar projections were turned off. Their basic information, though, was available. The girl before him did not bear the name “Alary” but rather a nick-name, “Mosai”.

“Mosai is not your real name, is it?” he asked.

“What do you mean? And no I don't know who you are. I have never met a [Muray] in my life.” She answered, her voice set the boy's heart on fire. He had a temporary flashback to when he had met her, and he remembered all the times they had spent together, “How do you know me?”

“We've spent some time together, a few years ago,” he said and watched her reaction, she was motionless. When she answered, she was half laughing to herself.

“You clearly have me confused with someone else,” she stood up on her board and Surfed away, “Good luck finding whoever you're trying to find!” She waved back at him and Surfed out into the fiery seas.

“Wait!” Lexan, surprised at her reaction, jumped on his bored and went after her, “You are who I am looking for, Alary!”

The girl did not slow down, she simply laughed again, “First you say it's not my real name and now you call me by it. What's your deal?”

“What?” the boy slowed down for a second so he could think. Word filtering, she still had the implants. If he had not traveled to that other world to get his removed, he would not have noticed the difference either. He sped up again, as much as he could, unfortunately, his board could not catch up to her. He felt frustration, after so long, he meet her, he got to talk to her and all she could do was surf away and ignore him.

“Come back, I still want to talk to you!” Lexan yelled out after her, she turned around and surfed toward him.

“What is there to talk about?” she asked, her masked face gave away no expression but her voice indicated annoyance, “You mistook me for someone else. I don't know who you are. And it's not possible that you've known me years ago because I am from the Cardinal Regions!”

“Yes, I know. You're from Earth,” said Lexan and waited for her to be shocked, perhaps speechless.

Instead she replied, “Yeah, I just said that.”

Another word filter, he thought. The boy changed the simulation, so that they would appear on a large green pasture with a blue sky and puffy white clouds.

“What did you do that for?!” Mosai jumped off her board onto the grass, slightly angry.

“Take off your helmet,” Lexan looked seriously at her. She did not respond, instead she moved to go past him. He grabbed her arm and threw her back away from the door that she summoned. She stopped in mid-air and turned into an Aether, puffing with red pulsating energy.

“What the hell is your deal?” She threw her board away and moved into her fighting stance, “If you don't move away from that damn door, I will beat the hell out of you. So get away.”

“Take off your helmet,” Lexan said again, he turned into an Aether. He had no idea how else to get her to take it off.

He was about to take his off, when Mosai attacked. She ran toward him and launched a punch aimed at Lexan's face. The boy dodged and hoped to land a punch in her stomach. Mosai moved out of the way and jumped up into the air, turning into the second degree Aether.

“I did my research, you're a first year. I don't see how you want to compete against me. I'm at the level equivalent of a fifth year.” She created a small fireball in her hand, one that burned brightly, much more brightly than Lexan’s previous attempts. The energy swirled out of her fingers into the air. There it burned and bent the light around, it resembled a tiny star with its own nuclear fusion reactor at the core. She threw the ball at Lexan who sucked the energy out of the air around his hand. The cool air condensed with ice crystals. Keeping the mass together, the boy launched his own projectile to meet the fiery sphere.

Lexan jumped into the air, spreading the Aether energy all over his body. Each cell in his body vibrated with the same frequency, they aligned together and started “turning” into the direction of a different spacial universe. Finally, in a brilliant flash of light, the cellular structures ruptured. As if made of pure energy, the boy floated in mid-air, the wind blowing through him.

“How did you-?” she stared at him in surprise. But before the boy, now invisible to mortal eyes, could answer, the girl launched several more fireballs at him, each burning slightly differently. One burned blue because of its condensed core, another burned brightly white, and the last one burned red as it expanded with its motion. She dove down to the ground.

The boy dove toward the ground as well, only to see the fireballs flying straight at him. He flew straight down and at the last second, he pushed down with one of his legs to move straight forward toward Mosai. Several fireballs splashed against the ground, igniting the green pasture. Joshua informed Lexan that the shields had been raised within the structure to compensate for the battle. Several other projectiles continued to follow Lexan.
 
The girl gave up on the fire and rather ejected massive electrical spikes toward him, like lightning but more direct; she succeeded in grazing his leg which jerked from the electrical charge. He attacked Mosai with a concentrated lightning of energy as well. He felt electricity flow through his body, the particles charged and escaped through his fingers. The discharge directed itself toward Mosai and with a great thunder, it landed upon her body.

She cringed with pain, her clothing charred. A fireball landed on Lexan's back and pushed him down into the dirt. He hit ground, flipped, and landed back-first. The air in his lungs escaped. When he tried to get up, he already saw Mosai running away toward the door. Lexan, once more, summoned his strength and let his body vibrate with energy. This time, he let the energy act like a magnet, but a magnet meant only for Mosai. The girl slipped and fell backward.

The boy finally stood up and headed toward Mosai. She, angry on the ground, blasted a laser beam at Lexan. The beam, a thin strip of light in the ultraviolet spectrum, escaped her fingers and
 
landed and burned through the boy's arm. He screamed with pain as the beam exited through the other side.

He did not bleed but he could not feel his arm either.. His see-through right arm was shimmering as if unsure if it really existed. His body
 
tried to regenerate his muscle tissue but could not. The heat from the beam had already singed the muscle fibers even though they were hidden and only partially existent in this reality.

“Dammit, what did you do that for?!” Lexan fell down to his knees, one arm clutching the other. The girl watched him from distance, wide-eyed. He tried to slow down his breathing but could not, the pain spread through his whole body. The endorphins released did not help much either, they only made him drowsy but still aware of the pain. He grit his teeth, he could not breathe. With a single swoop, he tore off his mask so that he could breathe clearly without obstruction. Tears welled up in his eyes. He could not take the pain.

A shimmering white liquid started dripping from his arm as his body reverted back to the first stage Aetheric state, the grass seemed to absorb it and grow. Some of the flowers bloomed. With a final and desperate attempt to stop Mosai, no, Alary, to stop, Lexan threw his left hand forward, dripping with his own liquids. He felt the anger, the pain, and frustration fill his body. The emotion aligned his bodily energy. The boy channeled it forward into his left arm. It felt hot, and burning. It burned, it hurt him. The pain amplified, he screamed.

And then it stopped. The pain stopped, the burning stopped, and he did not feel angry anymore. He did not feel frustrated, if only for a few seconds. In front of him glowed a perfect golden sphere. Its surface swirled and bubbled slightly. He created another fireball but this time it was no longer just a fire ball. It was a star, but not just a tiny star that Alary had created and thrown at Lexan earlier, one that dissolved within seconds, this one was sustainable. The ball sucked energy from around them and it started to have its own gravitational pull, inhaling the dirt and grass. The little start started to grow.
 
Then an eruption came and a piece of the mass ejected itself into the simulation room. The ground flared up with fire.

Lexan launched the orb at Alary who stared at it, terrified, “No! STOP!” she yelled out. Her arm reached out in front of her, “Stop! We're in a simulation room, you're going to burn the place down!”

The boy stared at her and called upon the star to rejoin him. The tiny little ball that acted as a bright blazing vacuum returned to him. His body reabsorbed the pain, the anger, and the frustrations. He bit down, and bared his teeth. Lexan's muscles flexed and he felt the pain leave him again. The pain that he created; his arm still bled the silver liquid.

“Yeah, you tell me to stop but that did not stop you from messing up my arm, huh?” He said, and stood up. Alary had turned back into her human form and ran toward him to help. Lexan turned back too, only to see the silver liquid mix with his blood. As it entered his body, the wound healed.

“I did not realize it! I forgot we were inside. I'm still not used to these life-like simulations,” she reached out to him and grabbed his right arm, “Damn, that beam did a lot of damage.” She then looked up at him, “Sorry about that [Muray], I didn't recognize you with your helmet on! And you could have said it was you at the beginning. It could have saved us from this mess.”

“Finally, and it's Lexan, or did you forget?” He smiled at her, finally relieved that she recognized him.

“[Muray] wasn't it? And why do you go by [Muray] anyways?” she stared at him confused. Lexan looked back at her even more confused.

“Let's go to your place. We can't have a conversation like this.” she nodded and they left the simulation room together.

“Where have you been all this time? And how did you get here from the Cardinal Regions?” Alary spoke again, and the boy shook his head again.

“We'll talk, just hold on.”

They had soon arrived, and Lexan led her to the Closet where they enjoyed the view of the Aether star.

“So, now can we talk [Muray]?” Alary asked.

“Turn off your cerebral chips,” Lexan said, the girl stared at him.

“Why?”

“Just trust me and do it.”

Alary took off the mask of her suit to reveal her long curly hair. The original brown in her hair had faded into silver. She had grown considerably, matured into a woman from the girl she had been. Lexan felt his heart beat with the warmth of memories they had spent together.