Seventeen: The Presence

Part Two: World of Beasts

The creatures from the heavens faced the Star Legion with nothing but their personal power. They were in different shapes: a blue serpentine dragon, a white tiger, a bleeding phoenix, a flaming leviathan, and a human clad in white robes.

They gazed at the Star Legion for a long moment, and the Star Legion gazed back, their heads cocked and standing battle-ready, as if deciding to attack or not–if they were friend of foe.

“They are enemies,” the white tiger said, pulling her lips back into a snarl. “They reek of the Source.”

“Perhaps,” the human acknowledged, “but that also means that–White, no!”

The tiger threw her head back and roared at the phoenix, and both of them charged forward to attack the Star Legion. In the same motion, the Star Legion struck back.

But the human who objected did not make any motions to stop them, even as the leviathan and the dragon charged in to join their fight.

Grandmaster swooped in on wings of fire and threw herself in front of her friends, as these five acolytes opened their mouths and released streams of destructive light, fire, and frost breath. Her eyes glowed, becoming pure-white slits of power as she absorbed their power. She soaked it all in, as if reality were a damp rag and she was breathing it all in.

The dragon drew back, hissing out a fog of ice. “Fireblood,” she snarled. “Blood of chaos.”

Grandmaster blinked in confusion at their accusations, but had to throw up another shield as the tiger ricocheted on the other side, clenching its paws into the ground. It opened its mouth and released an ear-piercing screech that made the ground shudder and sent the Legionnaires flying back, as though its voice was the heart of a hurricane.

On the other side, the phoenix split itself apart into tiny versions of itself, becoming a million spirits that threatened to swarm the Star Legion. The dragon breathed out a storm of ice that froze the land over, and the leviathan splashed into the lake, its tail threatening to release a flood of water.

The Star Legion were forced to scatter behind her, but the white tiger continued to screech, every step of its paws shaking the earth as it stalked toward Grandmaster. “Demon blood,” she hissed. “Chaos bringer. The B’Kun cry out for vengeance! The screams of the children haunt the galaxy! The keenness of the dead, the cry of the injured! Their blood is on your hands, Fire!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Grandmaster tried to reply, but found that she could not; the white tiger had whipped the air up into a maelstrom, swallowing her words and her demands to be heard. The wind whipped and shoved her away, breaking her heat like cracked stone, and sent her flying backwards.

Grandmaster summoned wind ta’lien and righted herself mid-flight, spinning around and hurling a fireball at the white tiger and the bleeding phoenix. They were also scattered, and that gave the Star Legion the time they needed to recover.

“Star Legion, take them down!” she commanded, her voice rising above the storm.

The bleeding phoenix let out a hiss that might have been a scornful laugh. “Take them down?” she imitated. “Child, you would have a better chance of throwing pebbles at the sun to stop it from rising. The Presence is the highest order of beings in the entire universe, and we have come to collect justice for the victims of the Fire Source!”

“But I’m not the Fire Source!” Grandmaster cried. “I didn’t kill the B’Kun, whoever they are. I–”

“Lies!” the leviathan bellowed, and when it opened its mouth, it released a breath that threatened to topple the Star Legion over. Without another word, the Star Legion sprang into action–all the while, the human just folded his arms and assumed a lotus position to watch.

The white tiger ruffled its mane, and then the world snapped to…another time. Another place. A place where four million souls called a planet home in some of the farthest reaches of the universe, surrounded by a world of starry blue. She felt sadness as she watched the souls drift around her aimlessly, lost, without direction.

This world had fallen apart, Grandmaster realized. The universe, the fabric of this part of reality, had been stretched beyond its means, leaving the planet alone in a world that should have been protected from outside threats.

Protected from invasion.

Across the starry blue sky, a golden ring blazed with power, shining like a sun that this planet did not have, and Grandmaster heard a warning siren in her mind.

Impending spatial violation, the Presence warned her. World defense formations have not engaged automatically. The Sector Control has been notified.

The sky cracked like glass between the golden formation-circles, revealing darkness beyond. And without consequence, she saw the shape of a phoenix dive into the form, the heart of a main sequence, a G-type star, much like her own sun. Its diameter was two million kilometers; surface temperature was six thousand degrees centigrade; core temperature, well over two thousand times that–over fourteen million degrees!

In reality, its future could only have been measured in a matter of minutes, as it was suddenly and completely consumed by the Fire Source.

Orbiting the star was a system of nine planets. Only the third was inhabited–by an ancient, peace-loving civilization. On the planetary dayside, they saw the light first–the awful light of armageddon. It filled the sky from horizon to horizon, ten minutes after their star was murdered.

Many who saw the light realized it was the last thing they would ever see. They were confused and frightened. The very few who realized what had happened had time to curse their cruel fate or make peace with their gods. Then the world ended around them.

Following the light came the heat flare. For the instant it hit them, the atmosphere and the oceans on the dayside boiled away almost instantaneously. Those few awake on the night side witnessed a beautiful Aurora Borealis before death claimed them. But half the planet was lucky–they died in their sleep.

And in the center of the supernova it created, the Fire Source thrilled, reveling in ecstasy.

Grandmaster and the Star Legion could only stare, horrified. How could the Fire Source have done this? How could it have destroyed an entire civilization all on its own?

“Do you not see, child?” the white tiger said ferociously, its tail flicking back and forth. “The B’Kun cry out for vengeance! You slaughtered them, and they must be avenged.”

“Wait a moment,” Grandmaster said quietly. “You’re the Presence! I have heard of you. The most powerful beings in the universe who watch over everything, but swear to not interfere with matters they consider to be beneath them. Why are you here?”

The leviathan hissed again. “Do not act ignorant, child. We come to punish you. The Fire Source must be destroyed, as well as its host.”

The Star Legion moved to surround Grandmaster. “Well, sugah, Ah’ve got some news for you,” Riven said. “She ain’t the Fire Source.”

“She is not,” Tempest agreed. “She is our messiah. Now, leave, or we shall make you leave.” Her eyes flashed dangerously.

“Surrender, and you shall receive our mercy,” the dragon said. “We shall spare your compatriots and take you back with us to the Heart of Existence, where Grandmaster shall awaken from her slumber and punish you herself.”

The Grandmaster gazed at them, puzzled. “I am the Grandmaster!” she shouted.

The bleeding phoenix snorted derisively. “As if we are that stupid, little girl. As if we shall be fooled by your claims that you are a part of Her Eminence, just because you claim great power. Now hand yourself over, or we shall take you by force.”

“You’ll be taking her over my dead body,” Shadowstalker growled. “You have no authority here. The Fire Source is a mortal issue, and–”

But Shadowstalker did not have time to finish, before the great leviathan lunged toward him, and Shadowstalker cried out as a wave of water swept him through.

…

Shadowstalker hit the black waters with a splash.

He thrashed in the cold darkness, weak from the impact, not knowing which way was up. Fortunately, he managed to cling to consciousness and surface in a sputtering mess. But then he sank again, and there was darkness on all sides.

He clung to it as a flash of light shone above. Were the Presence leaving? The surface seemed to be so far away, though it couldn’t have been more than five feet. Darkness, darkness all around. It was almost ironic, he thought. He could control darkness, and now he was going to die in it.

He hung on, but his arms were weak and his chest was bursting for breath. Terrified, he felt like the waters were crushing him. That awful, deep blackness. He couldn’t breathe…he was going to…

NO! A voice in his head screamed as blackness encircled him. Something splashed in the waters beside him–fingers on his leg. He didn’t spare any time to think as someone pulled him upwards and he burst into the open air, gasping.

Grandmaster was beside him, grabbing him, both of them gasping for breath. She clung to him, checking to make sure he was all right, then turned to the Presence.

“Curious,” the human murmured. “Very curious.”

And then the rest of the Presence rushed forward to attack.

…

The leviathan burst toward the sky, opening its massive jaws to swallow the Star Legion whole, but Tempest circled her arms in a dancer’s motion and hurricane-force gales erupted around them, exploding upwards to keep the Star Legion aloft.

Storm clouds generated from Tempest covered the sky and the lightning splintered red. Crimson stripes were painted across the clouds as the ta’lien from the bloody phoenix stained the world. Sparks’ head pounded at the feel of its spirit in the air; if he relaxed his concentration, he thought he might hear the distant song of the phoenix. He preferred the headache.

Like a swarm of ants, red spots crawled all along the soul space. He could feel them clearly, even without a scan of his sixth spiritual sense. They were known as bloodspawn. They grew from blood and ate ta’lien, either evolving on their own or returning power to the Bloody Phoenix, and now they were laying siege here.

Tempest and Riven were clashing against the leviathan that weighed down on their spirits, like a parasite they knew intimately. Riven acted fast, the power in her strength ringing like a bell. Plenty of the bloodspawn had carried weapons or shaped themselves into a sharp edge, and some of them had ta’lien of their own. But Riven had a seemingly endless number of techniques, and she was unafraid to use them.

When her fist met its scales, crimson blood and ta’lien sprayed up from all over. Gauntlet whipped out a ball of energy horizontally and sent out a striking technique that would do for many of the bloodspawn, but it wouldn’t be enough to wipe the army out. Before the echo had faded, Gauntlet erupted with power.

His power was like a rippling sword, a gold-and-red wave of energy and ta’lien that expanded out of him as it flew, scraping an entire island between the mountain and the metaphorical town clean. In fact, it even sliced a few hills and carved a gash in the base of the mountain. A small one. Gauntlet doubted the townspeople would mind, since they were not even real.

That swept the bloodspawn away from the island like a broom sweeping a floor clean, but Gauntlet’s ta’lien display had attracted attention.

A red light grew beneath Tempest, and the scarlet jaw of the Bloody Phoenix opened wide to swallow her. Tempest leaped up with the wind, and a huge, clawed hand made of lightning and fire was shoved down the Phoenix’s throat. Her technique wrestled with the monster among the clouds that seemed to run a thousand miles. Rather than these bloodspawn taking over the phoenix, the phoenix had created the bloodspawn, but Tempest’s senses could not catch even a single difference in power.

Then she turned and locked her perception onto the dragon, which was hissing out frost breath, bars of whiteness that threatened to freeze everything over. Cryo leaped in front of it, mimicking its movements, and the ice that flooded over him merely allowed him to grow stronger and stronger, larger and larger, until he was as large as the Freeze Dragon itself. Cryo continued to clash with it, simply absorbing its ice into himself with one hand, and froze the waves of water from the Red Leviathan into waves of ice even as it blasted out more bloodspawn.

On the other side, Astra gathered her power, her ta’lien and her soulfire. As the red leviathan beneath her crushed their techniques, swatting a dozen of them out of the air with its fins every second, she launched the attack she liked to call the Final Sword.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

A sword of silver-and-red light streaked through the darkness of the soulspace.

When the Bloody Phoenix swept out with its spear of fire, its first strike should have destroyed himself, Grandmaster, and most of the Star Legion. But Grandmaster used her own flames to attack her, but attacking this halo with flames was like attacking gasoline to an inferno. As the phrase went, you could not fight fire with fire.

Living serpents of ice and fire flew at her, and she was sure the last thing she was going to see were a set of shining fangs.

But then something within her cracked open.

The voice of the White Tiger flashed through her head at the speed of light. “Is that hostile ta’lien I sense? The time for protection for your friends has come.” The spirit’s laugh was disturbing.

“I’m not who you think I am,” Grandmaster replied as destructive ta’lien erupted from her hands like tendrils of black flame. They dissolved the White Tiger’s techniques in an instant–all of them. The White Tiger stopped laughing. The white light from her mouth hit the shadow of destruction and simply died.

The controlled White Tiger tilted her head in confusion, then translucent blue lines crawled all over her skin. She crouched and braced herself to attack.

White Tiger steadied her paws and threw her head back. “Finger of power!” she roared.

The tiger unleashed a basic striking technique: a stream of destructive energy and light that resembled the frost breath of the Freeze Dragon. Grandmaster had to raise hand to hold off the technique and crawl around the other, but this kind of ta’lien was different from the ones she usually worked with. The pink energy seemed to inch along her skin like a maggot and followed her through her bone marrow and bloodstreams, feasting on her spirit–but that was only until she blew it apart and rushed at the White Tiger in a blur of speed.

The blue leviathan had sensed Astra’s technique on the far side of the soul space and raised a wall of ice, but Cryo was a step ahead. He raised and created an over-sized cleaver that blew the ice away like shards of glass in the night breeze. So without any resistance or struggle, Astra’s power landed on his corrupt red scales.

But the leviathan still managed to twist around, so Astra’s Final Sword technique did not land directly on his face as was intended. Instead, her telekinetic power had carved a chunk out of the serpent the long way, slicing a line down his body as he roared in pain.

That gave Phantasma an opening, which she greatly took advantage of. She activated her soulfire and managed to forge her ta’lien into a huge sword, which plunged down like a huge blade of heavenly fire the size of a tree. She managed to slice a line through the leviathan, allowing him to roar in pain.

Grandmaster connected her consciousness to the Star Legion’s as she battled the White Tiger, which was harder than she thought it was going to be–simply because the White Tiger had the techniques and the finesse of a warrior in battle for perhaps many years–perhaps even centuries. But while there were many cosmic entities, there was only one Grandmaster.

She found it hard to stay in step with the intricate dance of the White Tiger, because it was as if she were in tune with a rhythm that only she could hear. Despite Grandmaster’s annoyance, she didn’t really want to hurt these creatures–they truly believed that she was the Fire Source, and that she had been the one who killed the B’Kun people. But how could she have done that? All she wanted to do was use her power to help people. She had never once done something that terrible with her power. Why would the Presence think that she was the Fire Source?

Grandmaster focused and re-blasted a stream of light combined with sound from the White Tiger, and then opened her consciousness to the Star Legion via a mental doorway. Star Legion, I want this done properly. Don’t kill the members of the Presence–simply take them out so we can question them later. For some reason, they think that I am the Fire Source, and we have to prove them wrong. Defeat them, and then we can break out of the soul space and deal with them in the real world, on our turf.

Why is that man just standing there? Cryo yelled, blasting the dragon with a wall of ice that the Freeze simply absorbed.

As if he heard them, the man simply replied, “I am the Sector. And I wish to see how this plays out.”

Riven didn’t get a chance to throw the Sector an incredulous glance, because her own crimson phoenix had latched onto her own spirit. Flows of the blood ta’lien had speared toward her like striking serpents, and she couldn’t move around fast enough to avoid the strikes. Instead, she had to tear them apart with a flowing bit of the power that she had taken from Gauntlet, making her shine brighter every second.

But she wasn’t fast enough.

One of the red tendrils from the bloodspawn pierced through her shoulder like a harpoon but instead of feeling the pain in her shoulder, she felt it in her head–an exploding headache but magnified a hundredfold in an instant as the lament of this phoenix filled her mind. It grated on her soul like a shredder, and she screamed as she was hurled into the depths of the soul space–

–and into the depths of the waiting bird below.

Even distracted by the pain, she still managed to plunge her hands into the side of the bird’s mouth. The phoenix’s entire form began to dissolve in a loud screech, collapsing onto its own body, but it was also ready to crush her and dissolve her essence at once. The Bloody Phoenix did not react to the pain–in fact, she thought it might not have felt anything from her hands.

“Tempest! Gauntlet!” Riven shouted. “See if it feels this!”

Tempest lifted Gauntlet with a tide of wind and the energy and lightning merged together, improving their ta’lien channels. Their bodies and spirits were no longer separate, and their wills were combined. To put it simply, both of them could use a lot of techniques without their spirits being harmed or their deviations running out. Now seemed like a good time to see how far they could push themselves, Gauntlet thought wryly

Tempest activated a bell of lightning that seemed to ring endlessly, waves of blue and white flashing around her. Another clawed hand appeared over her head and braced itself against the wall of the mouth of the Bloody Phoenix. As Astra’s Endless Sword continued to echo around them, Gauntlet leaped forward.

“Sparks, hit me!” Gauntlet shouted.

Sparks tore off his sweaters and glowed too bright to look at, and then he blasted Gauntlet with energy. Gauntlet soaked it all in, then rechanneled it into his fists and his eyes, glowing red-hot and as bright as a star. As the echo of their powers rang out in all directions, Tempest and Gauntlet swept out waves of lightning and energy in all directions, launching the techniques of a striker with every motion.

The shadows of the bloodspawn exploded.

Riven whooped as she emerged from the center of a wet detonation, and she found herself glad that this was not a physical being, but rather a spiritual one, or she would have been caked in blood and gore.

Then the Freeze Dragon began to catch up with Cryo, tired of their games. He blasted out waves of ice and swirling snowstorms at the ice manipulator, and even the Alpha-level deviant was having trouble keeping up with his sheer power. So he ignored him and ran back out to the spiritual crossroads. He could feel the spirit of the dragon catching up to him, and it was unsteady, shaken from all of Cryo’s redirected attacks, but it was becoming steadier. He had to stop him before he recovered at full strength.

He shifted back into his mortal form and began to run, his tail swishing behind him. When Jamie was a human, he was clumsy and awkward, but when his deviation manifested and he grew a tail and fangs, running now felt as smooth and powerful as one who was a professional swimmer might feel in the water, or the way one who was a soccer player might feel with the ball between his feet. His body responded instantly to his demands, and he marveled at his power–he was stronger and tougher than any old human, and as he reached a spire in the center of the soul space, he opened himself up and created an axe of ice.

He ran over to Astra and Sparks, who were battling another creature of the Bloody Phoenix. They were covered in ta’lien that overwhelming rang with life from the Freeze Dragon, which had bloomed in the form of a tree that stretched from the ground to the starry ceiling. That power was astonishing; he couldn’t imagine anything killing him with that much power, that much energy of life, running through him.

But he didn’t have to kill him, he thought. He just needed to buy them time.

Cryo smiled slightly. I can do that, he thought, and raised his powers. He lifted the axe, running trails of ice and ice ta’lien through the binding. The cobalt light that ran down the side of the savage blade began to strengthen and roll out in waves of blue and silver, and he created extra hands of ice that began to reach out of the weapon as he activated a timer to his power.

Astra, Sparks, and her Endless Sword were whipping around her, defending themselves from tendrils of red-and-blue light. He sized them up with his spiritual sense and realized they felt incredibly shaking, like a candle that threatened to be snuffed out at any moment.

Just as he was about to release a technique and throw the axe, his mind screamed out a warning to him, and he spun back.

The Freeze Dragon had fired a technique into a monstrous blade, blue ice piercing the air as it clashed with Tempest’s lightning. At the same time, Cryo and Tempest poured their own powers like water into their techniques, one from each hand, soulfire flowing into it.

Cryo swung the axe and the effects were immediate.

He had experimented with his powers before, but he had never done something like this–never tested this kind of weapon before. He thought he was too weak, or that his will was not strong enough; perhaps some kind of combination of the two, but he had spent some time practicing this in the War Room, and he thought about some idea of what he could do with it.

The reality of what he could do was so much greater than he had imagined.

Ice and frost and waves of ta’lien erupted from the head of the axe, forming into a wave of ghostly blue hands. Thousands of spindly miniature arms of ice stretched from the blade, reaching for the Freeze Dragon. The dragon froze, his mouth open in shock, and then whipped his tail into a feeding frenzy that punched through the cloud of ice, destroying a few hands, but for every that fell, double the amount came to replace them. His attacks were swallowed up whole as though a cloud of sand had consumed him.

Scarlet and blue claws clawed forward in a flood as the Bloody Phoenix and the Freeze Dragon wailed loud enough to hurt the Legionnaires’ ears. They swept through the space of the soul without slowing, and all they could see was a wall of blue and red.

When the beacons of light started to fade, the Star Legion strained themselves, looking quickly for each other. If any of them had perished…

The three hulking figures that resembled armored giants stumbled up to the Legionnaires, dazed but unhurt. The Star Legio almost panicked, but they had smooth faces, with twisting tendrils of ta’lien and flame and ice running through them.

They looked at the Star Legion, at Cryo, who lowered his axe while Shadowstalker kindled shadows in his right hand.

The Freeze Dragon inspected them for a moment.

“You did not kill us,” the Freeze Dragon said slowly. “You triumphed over us in combat, yet you let us live. Why?”

“That is what the Star Legion does,” Astra replied. “Killing you would have been wrong, especially since you are fighting for the right thing.”

The Bloody Phoenix spun a tendril of flame that eerily resembled a knife in her talons, completely oblivious to the fight between White Tiger and Grandmaster a few feet away. “We’re going to ask you questions. Tell the truth and you’ll live. Lie…and die.”

“Did you help aid the Fire Source in destroying the B’Kun people?” the Freeze Dragon asked.

“No,” Riven said fiercely. “We’d never help anyone destroy an entire civilization. We wouldn’t even do that ourselves.”

“Correct,” the Freeze Dragon said, looking surprised.

“Did you vow to fight the Fire Source on this planet?” the Red Leviathan asked.

“Yes,” Tempest said.

“Very good. Why?”

“The alternative is war.”

The Bloody Phoenix chirped. “Correct again. What is your ulterior motive?”

Astra started. “We do not have–”

“Not you, little one,” the Freeze Dragon interrupted. He pointed a claw at Sparks. “You.”

Sparks hesitated. Because I want to see what will happen, he admitted.

“I believe you. So does the rest of the Presence,” the Sector said, drifting over to them.

“Well, if you believe us, why don’t you stop that tiger from beatin’ up our leader?” Riven demanded, pointing at the intense fight between White Tiger and Grandmaster. Shadowstalker bared his canines and moved forth to intervene, but the Sector held him back.

“The same reason we are allowing you to live,” the Sector replied simply. “Our scales are balanced. I too want to see how this will end.”

…

But even though the White Tiger may have had more strategies and techniques, they were only a match for raw, undiluted power up to a point.

“I don’t want to fight you!” Grandmaster shouted, enlarging her body to try to throw off her aim as she ducked and threw a punch to her maw. It wouldn’t work, because her heart was only half in this fight. But she had to try something.

“Murderer!” the White Tiger bellowed, her voice ringing out like a heart of flames as she blasted light at Grandmaster. “The B’Kun demand vengeance!”

She had to prove that she did not kill the B’Kun; show that she was not capable of that ruthlessness. She activated a construct of fire that did not burn, but flare, and hurled it at White Tiger. It was a burst of force and wind that blasted her back several paces, which also meant that her punch did not connect in the way it was supposed to. Instead, she felt a pulse of ta’lien running through her, and she activated her powers.

Her techniques of fire erupted all around the soul space. The White Tiger seemed to be made for destruction, though, and she swatted them out of the air.

Then something gold blazed in the sky and hit the ground like a meteorite.

Grandmaster recognized it for what it was: a meteor because the soul space was collapsing on itself. Whoever created it was destroying it, and they were about to be trapped in this pocket dimension.

She glanced up at her friends to check if they were safe, and her power flared in alarm as she realized they stared back at her in concern, then they disappeared. Then she watched the smug look of the Sector, and realized he was the one doing this.

At that moment, she decided that he was a bastard through and through.

The remnant of the soul space looked like a giant sword, sleek and compact, the color of burnished steel. Its right arm was a sword and the left arm was a shield, and its face looked like the head of a hatchet. Overall, it resembled a freaky skeleton. But she only caught one glimpse of it until the thing moved and then it was a flashing silver blur.

“Oh no,” the White Tiger whispered, her eyes widening. She attempted to attack the remnant of the soul space, but every technique that she launched exploded to bits, either destroyed by this construct’s blade or blocked by its shield. Instead, it released a striking technique that split into a dozen pieces.

“Get down!” Grandmaster flung herself in front of the White Tiger, much to her shock, and absorbed the balls of force before the struck. Grandmaster was honestly relieved when she felt the White Tiger was still alive; even though she had instigated this fight, it would have been terrible if she died.

Grandmaster felt a warning flare in her mind from the touch of reality and whirled away. The White Tiger made a high-pitched keening noise and screamed her name. She manifested a blade of fire and sliced it in half.

As Grandmaster landed on the ground, a shield of gray force slammed into her, knocking her back. The White Tiger howled in dismay before Grandmaster whirled around and slammed the butt of her blade into the silver construct.

A roil of snakes rushed toward the White Tiger and she howled again, before Grandmaster threw herself in front. She created a cloud of ta’lien that devoured the serpents and she absorbed them into herself.

The entire soul space trembled and threatened to collapse in on itself, and Grandmaster grabbed the White Tiger’s paw and pulled her away. The soul space could literally run them through at any moment, and Grandmaster’s hands trembled as she pulled them out before this world ended.