

Project Yeagher

Finding the Lost Boy

Book One

Copyright 2014 J. S. Bendle

Published by J. S. Bendle at Smashwords

Edition License Notes

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue Chapter One: The Battle of Heaven, The Beginning of the End

Prologue Chapter Two: The Battle of Heaven, The Fall From Grace

Prologue Chapter Three: The Battle of Heaven, The March on Paradise

Prologue Chapter Four: The Battle of Heaven, Aftermath

Chapter One: Katelin Lost and Wondering

Chapter Two: The Lost Boy

Chapter Three: Something Worth While

Chapter Four: Death, Destruction, Restart

Chapter Five: The Boy's Beginning

Chapter Six: The Beginning of Training with Master Jason

Chapter Seven: Things That Shouldn't Concern a Child

Chapter Eight: The Rebound Technique

Chapter Nine: Arguments with a Stubborn Old Master

Chapter Ten: Goodnight and Good Morning

Chapter Eleven: Master Miller and Reploid Armor

Chapter Twelve: Spell Binding with Master Sam

Chapter Thirteen: I Didn't Always Live Alone

Chapter Fourteen: Summoning, An Art of Portals

Chapter Fifteen: Beyond the Blade, the Art of the Sword

Chapter Sixteen: A Storm of Bullets, Full Auto Reploid

Chapter Seventeen: First Flight

Chapter Eighteen: Beauty From Such Great Heights

Chapter Nineteen: Nobody's Perfect

Chapter Twenty: Crimson Died Feathers
Chapter Twenty-One: A Mortal Master's Knowledge of Immortal's
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Wings of an Angle on the Back of a Man

Chapter Twenty-Three: Spell Binding Immortality

Chapter Twenty-Four: Share This Bed with You My Love

Chapter Twenty-Five: The Blurred Lines Between Man and Machine

About the Author

Other books by This Author

Connect with J. S. Bendle
Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my family who have supported me through not only this book, but throughout my whole life as well. Without them this wouldn't have been possible. To the chubby short man who knows who he is, I hope that you read this and laugh. I love you all.
Prologue Chapter One

It is said that in the beginning of time there were beings of total and complete power. They were gods. Forever living in a world of their own creation. They lived peacefully in this heaven for countless years. The gods grew in number as time elapsed and come to the conclusion that some form of government needed to be established to preserve the rights of all of the gods. This was the beginning of the council of heaven. When it began it was an open council, open to anyone who wanted to participate. However, the council did not remain the open symbol of equality that it was intended to be. One of the first rules put in place was the restriction of creating life of any kind in paradise. This is what many believed lead to the eventual end of peace in heaven.

The gods lived forever but many chose to transcend to a level of existence that was beyond conscientiousness. There were those that did not however and as time passed it was these elder gods who were content to control the council and by all means rule heaven. And these gods were content with not creating life or doing it in secret saying that it was beyond the comprehension of the younger gods. These younger gods, who were no longer welcome to participate in the council, were not. They were young and filled with power that could only be understood through practice. So they went to distant worlds and they created. Unfortunately some only created to test and better understand their power and in turn the universe. They made all forms of life from the purest expressions of beauty to the living embodiment of all the things that could bring fear, pain, and suffering to the soul of a god. The creations were made for many different reasons but many were not thought of as anything more than expressions of will and were not given an after thought. The result was that the once peaceful worlds were filled with unspeakable monsters and chaos.

In an attempt to prevent the younger gods from doing anymore harm to the universe or, indirectly,themselves or each other the elders of the council erected a gate around their paradise. It was in the interest of protecting the people of heaven that brought the council into existence and it was this same interest that also brought the gate into being. Time distorts the nonphysical. Perspectives become distorted and change. Legends can change places with the past, and the present can become lost. As the generations pasted the reason for the gate became lost like the universe outside them. All that was left was the gates, and the words of the elders of the council. These words were belittling and seldomly believed.

None of the younger gods believed the stories of the monsters that lived beyond the gates. They'd never been seen before and were thought to be nothing more than children's tales meant to scare the younger gods into obedience. To make matters worse many of the elders of the council had made the final transcendence, dissipating into the universe, making their presence in the world ever lasting, but their voices became lost. The remainder of the council were the elders who valued their power and position more than anything else.

Eventually the protests began. Groups of gods began to assemble outside the chamber of the council voicing various grievances, with the most common among them being the gate. Instead of facing the groups and trying to make them see reason, the elders simply banned assemblies from the councils chambers and the surrounding grounds. The protesters left fearing what the council might do if they stayed, however the groups did not dis-banned. Instead they came together as one, meeting in secret.

One of the young gods who was charismatic and well spoken took the lead at one such meeting. "I dream of a life without the shackles of the council. I dream of being able to create where and what I please without fear. I dream of being able to see the galaxy and the rest of the universe instead of being kept here like a animal in a cage." he said. Each statement was met with growing cheers. The young god had a certain air about him that made others want to follow him, and he knew just what to say to gather more steam and support. As the cheers died down he spoke again.

"Above all else I dream of freedom." The crowd exploded in cheers and applause and he motioned for silence. The crowd quickly cut off their cheers but remained either standing or on the edge of their seats. "But these dreams," he began, "Our dreams, are doomed to remain just dreams, unless," he paused more for effect than anything else "Unless we take action. Unless we take heed to the signs of our own captivity, we will never become our own masters. You can stand beside me in opposition to the oppression or you can stand with the council and abandon the hope of living free. There are no guaranties that anything will change and I can't promise you that we will succeed. However, I can promise you my own commitment to our cause and that I will not give up until we are free! Are you with me?"

The cheers were so loud that they were herd in the streets. Gods gathered in the streets and began the march. The crowd grew and in mass, led by the voice of the young charismatic god, they made their way to the chamber of the council of heaven. As they stood on the steps of the councils chamber they demanded action. They demanded change. And they demanded a voice to control their own lives.

Weather the members of the council herd or not was unseen and it wasn't until they threatened to tare down the chambers around them that the elders of the council emerged from their chambers. "How dare you disturb the peace of this city! How dare you threaten these chambers, the chambers of the council of heaven!" the eldest member of the council said speaking with venom in his voice.

The young god spoke above the shouting that this new arrival brought. "How dare you call this assembly of your brothers and children a disturbance of the peace. We," he said gesturing to the rest of the crowed. "We have tried to voice our desires peacefully. We have tried to do things your way even though it is apparent that you have no interests in what we have to say. Now we here are demanding that you tare down the gates and return the freedom to the people."

The elder god stood silent for a moment as he regarded the young leader of the rebellious uprising. He had to end this quickly and at whatever costs to avoid opening the gate, "You will not tell me that you want peace and freedom and then order me to doom us all to death. You will all disperse now. Any and all that remain here will be considered aggressors against the good order of Heaven and be regarded as enemies of the state."

The crowed grew restless. Many shouted that they should leave while they still could and more than a handful actually did. Deciding that where as they did want change they didn't think it was worth risking the wrath of the council if they didn't get the change that they were asking for. Those who remained were visibly shaken by the elders threat and did not have the same confidence as they did when the march began. Seeing his support beginning to waver right before him the young god was quick to challenge the elders threat. "You are in no position to threaten us. We are many and you are few." he said again gesturing to the crowd. "It would do you well to hear our demands." he added when he saw some of the members of his mob regaining their courage. There were a few like him, who had never lost their nerve, and remained defiant of the elder the whole time.

However, that courage was short lived. The elder raised his arms and as he did great stone walls rose from the ground high into the sky, trapping the supporters inside of a large stone cage. "Many of you there may be, but you are unlearned." he said. His voice was no longer that of a decrepit old man but the booming voice of an overlord speaking at ants from on top of the massive stone wall that he just created. "But that will change and you will be cured of your ignorance." he said to a crowd that was silent.

The young god had never fought against anyone with the skills that the elder had, and he did not want to fight him here. He chose to wait and see what the elder would do before he rushed to violence.

"You will see the world outside of the gate and get to know it quite well. You are all here by banished from paradise. Gather your things and go, if you are seen here again your life will be forfeit."

The crowd began to argue their banishment and the walls began to quake. The former protesters fell silent and the elder lowered the walls. Silently the crowd dispersed with more fear in that moment than they'd ever known. No one in the crowd had ever been outside the gates of heaven. Now they would go and whatever awaited them would be their new home weather they liked it or not.
Prologue Chapter Two

"The elders were right." one of the young supporters began, "This place is no friend to an immortal."

"Do not be a fool my friend Immortals created this we can most certainly survive and become prosperous on our own. This is our new heaven!!!" The young god proclaimed with his arms open wide to the gathering group but it happened to be a bit smaller than he recalled.

"Good Sir we have lost many already we must be careful."the supporter begged.

But the young god would not be deterred, so he led those that remained down the mountain "How could so many gods not make the fall?" the young god asked. Flight was one of the few things that nearly every God still knew.

"It was not the fall that killed them sir." the supporter continued. "There are creatures inside the mountain." he said.

"They can't possibly be killed by creatures they're gods" the young god said.

"My good sir have you actually created life?" another supporter asked.

"Yes and you can stop calling me sir. I am Lucifer"the young god said.

It was at that moment that the group heard a scream then felt a thud through the ground then nothing but whimpers that eventually died out too. Then the thuds began again, but now they were growing louder as whatever it was grew closer.

"We must flee Lucifer before we suffer the same fate as the others." the supporter began.

"Don't be a coward." Lucifer began. "The creations of our ancestors are nothing to fear."

"Not all of us are practiced in the ways of our powers. I for one had hoped to learn how to wield my abilities once we made it outside the gates."

"What is your name young man?" Lucifer asked, placing a hand on the young man's shoulder.

"My name is Desimiss." he said, with his head hung low in shame. Although he had wanted to he had never broken the laws of the council of heaven. Not only did he fear their wrath, but also he feared the possibility that they were right and that creating life within the gates of heaven would put the lives of everyone in heaven at risk. So he had never developed his potential power into anything and now it was that fear that made it hard to look a proud fearless man like Lucifer in the eye.

"Well Desimiss I will gladly teach you and anyone else anything that I can but first we must make it down these mountains. I will protect you in the mean time until you can protect yourself." Lucifer said. He would not demand that everyone stay with him like some tyrant. He would simply prove to them that it was safer to stay together until they knew more of this world.

It was then that the creature showed its self. It was at least fifty feet tall and maybe seventy feet long. Covered in scales the size of a man's midsection that overlapped all over the creatures body except for its massive wings that had to span easily a hundred feet. They had fallen out of heaven right into dragon territory and weather that was the intention of the elders or not, the effect was the same. They were the foolish children who had begged and begged to play with fire until the elders had grown angry and throw them into the flame. All of the supporters screamed and began to run in every direction in a scared panic. Then the dragon let forth a piercing cry that dropped many to their knees, but Lucifer didn't falter. Instead he walked towards the dragon separating himself from the crowd. As he got within the dragon's reaching distance the creature tried to simply bat him out of the way. Lucifer's reached out his hand with his arm out stretched and stopped the massive clawed hand of the beast. For all of the mighty creature's strength, he was no match for that of a god and when Lucifer pushed back the beast nearly fell over as his arm was unexpectedly thrown back. As the dragon reared back to let for another of its battle cries Lucifer waved his hand and an unseen force sent the creature tumbling end over end until it fell from the side of the mountain. It reappeared flying away with several cries of frustration over having lost such a promising meal.

With the immediate danger gone Lucifer went around helping those who were still on the ground, he couldn't help but wonder what kind of creatures where farther the down the mountain. There was a lot that he had to wonder about now. He had created life before but it had always been small and easily controllable and he usually ended it after he had learned all that he could or wanted to, but this was all because of the laws of the council. Now that he had seen one of the creations of his ancestors it humbled him. He didn't believe that he had it in him to make something so massive and powerful which made him wonder if the creature he had just seen had been created that way or if it had grown into the beast that it was. As the creature flew out of sight its cries were joined by more from what everyone could only assume were more of the creatures. However, unlike before there was no panic only silence as all eyes looked to Lucifer.

"We should continue down the mountain and try to avoid the creatures when we can. We don't know how many more there are, or what else is out there, but we can all agree that this seems to be their hunting ground and we don't want to be here." he said, in the same commanding voice he had used before the fall. The trek down the mountain was rough given the terrain and the heat, but the group made it to the foot hills at the base of the mountain with little incident. However that did not last long. The foot hills were littered with much smaller creatures that were far faster then the giant dragon, but just as blood thirsty. Lucifer did his best to defend the group but the creatures managed to pick off several of the weaker stragglers. He had no idea that so much of the populous of heaven was so powerless. All because of the laws of the council no one ever spoke of the extent of their own power. At least that was what he thought, until he saw the reality that was very few of the people had any power to speak of.

Finally they made it to the tree line that they hoped to find cover from the monsters and the harshness of the night. Lucifer looked around at everyone that had made it this far. His group was a tenth of the size that it had started as and he had to wonder what happened to all of them. Flight was one of the few powers that every inhabitant of heaven showed almost constantly and even though they were neither very fast or nimble slowing their decent to avoid falling to their death shouldn't have been difficult. He had been one of the last to leave paradise and everyone who left with him had no problem making it to the mountain top. He hadn't seen any bodies of those that he had thought had fallen on the way down the mountain, but he had assumed that was because they had all been eaten by the winged creatures of the mountain. However, the more he thought about it he didn't think that was the case. Not only were there no bodies, but there were no body parts or even traces of blood anywhere to be seen. The one dragon that he had seen up close had been covered in the gore of it's last victim. Further more he hadn't heard anymore screams which made him even less convinced that all of the others had died coming down the mountain.

Just as he began to ask himself where had they all gone he heard a scream. It was the scream of a god, although he was beginning to doubt that all of those who left heaven were worthy to be given that tittle, and it was too far off to be anyone in his group. "Stay close and hurry and maybe we can save them." he said and took off at a slow jog towards the scream.

Desimiss quickly caught up with Lucifer and asked in a tone that only he could hear, "Do you think one of the ones the got snatched up made it away from the monsters?"

In the unfamiliar glow of the moon light Desimiss looked much younger than Lucifer and he couldn't bring himself to tell him the truth of what he really thought. If Desimiss was right then whoever just screamed was probably alone, scared and injured and whatever it was that made them scream was upon them. Additionally just as their scream had drawn Lucifer to them it had also been a call to any creature that was close by and looking for a meal. "It doesn't matter who it is they're one of us and we have to help them." he said. He didn't want to tell the boy, as he now saw him, that he thought there might be additional survivors in case he was wrong. He wanted to run faster but didn't want to stretch the group too thin since it didn't make much sense to loose to or three more people to save one. "Desimiss, get to the back of the group and make sure they keep up. If they start to fall behind call out and I'll slow down." he said, trying to think of anyway that he could speed up and keep the group together. Desimiss nodded and fell back and Lucifer picked up the pace.

It wasn't long before Lucifer began to hear voices and he felt hopeful. The voices were in conversation and although he couldn't make out what they were saying it meant that he was right and somehow others had survived the fall from paradise and made it down the mountain own their own. He doubled his pace and as he grew closer he could see light breaking through the trees from a clearing and he now knew why he couldn't make out the conversation. Half of it was in a language he'd never heard and was coming from a voice deeper than any he'd known before. He slowed his pace and that of the group's, not knowing what he would find in the clearing he proceeded with caution, but he didn't stop. He was sure that the scream he'd heard had come from a god and he was almost positive that it had come from a woman. When he was sure that the rest of his group had made it and they were all caught up with each other he motioned for them to stay put while he went to investigate what was going on. Nothing could have prepared him for what he was about to walk into and when he entered the clearing that was when chaos ensued.

The scream had indeed come from a woman who was squirming while being held upside down by a creature that looked like an oversized man from the waist up but had the body of a mighty horse from the waist down. Whoever the woman was she had stumbled into a pack of centaurs. There were easily twenty or so of the creatures in the clearing and just as many surviving gods. Other than the one holding the woman the centaurs were all armed with spears that were drawn and pointed at the group of survivors that the woman had been with. The conversation that Lucifer had heard was an argument between one of the centaurs and a god that he did not recognize.

"Put her down!" the god ordered from outside of arms distance. His words were punctuated by him pointing at the woman and then to the ground.

Although the creatures top half had the same look as that of a man they were nearly twice the size. So while holding the woman out of the way of the conversation with one hand the centaur spoke. "Uuurag thak acata verdon." While it was clear that none of the gods actually knew what the creature was saying, his hand gesturing made his intent clear. He pointed to the one god then to the group standing surrounded and then pointed to the wall of trees behind them probably where they had entered the clearing in the first place. Then the creature pulled the woman close to himself and stepped back from the god.

The young god took a step forward being careful to remain outside of the reach of the creature and began to demand the woman's release again. It was like re-watching the same seen as the centaur repeated himself over and over again.

Not to say that anything was going well before but the moment that one of the centaurs saw Lucifer he spoke something in his native tongue and half a dozen of their warriors were rushing towards him, ready to impale him on six different spears. Lucifer did not scream or panic and was glad that the attack was focused on him and not the others. They had made the mistake of letting these creatures think they were weak prey and Lucifer knew that to take charge of the situation he would have to prove the opposite. He spun and knocked all of the spears harmlessly away. Then he let loose a pulse of power and knocked the six creatures back. He didn't want to harm the creatures, just show them that he was beyond their ability. The message was well received and the group that had encircled him parted just enough to show him the spear that was at the throat of the woman being held hostage. Lucifer held up his hands and slowly started walking towards the centaur and the woman. As he continued towards them the creature began to shout orders at him to stop, but he didn't slow down or speed up.

The god that had been doing the negotiations beforehand looked at Lucifer and asked. "What are you doing? Are you trying to get us all killed?" His tone said that he didn't know what else to do, but that he didn't think that whatever Lucifer had planned was wise. Then again it could've been that after causing them all to be banished from paradise that he, nor the rest of them in the clearing, trusted Lucifer to make any decisions that could effect them.

"Gods do not get killed by their own creations." Lucifer said, as he continued to walk forward ignoring both the god and the creature shouting orders and threatening the young woman he was holding hostage. He reached out with his power and took hold of the spear that was at the woman's throat. He could actually see the bewilderment in the creatures face as he tried to make good on his threat and impale the woman, but failed. Lucifer didn't break stride and reached the creature before it could figure what was wrong. He took control of the creatures hands with his power and made him drop both the woman and the spear. Lucifer caught the woman and returned her to the group of cowards that he was almost ashamed to call his kin. Then he expanded the range of his control and power to all of the creatures in the clearing and forced them all to their knees.

The creatures cried out in a combination of pain, anger and fear before they were all forcibly silenced by Lucifer's power. "Kneel before your gods!" he commanded. He pulled bolts of lightning from the sky and made fire before the creatures' eyes and in the smoke he made illustrations of his words. "We are your creatures from long ago. We have come down from our homes in the sky to live among our creations. It is time for celebrations and joy as we, your gods, join you to usher in a new era of prosperity and peace for you and your world." With a wave of his hand Lucifer extinguished the flam and dissipated the smoke. He released the control he held over them forcing them to their knees and keeping them silent but they didn't dare move. "Arise children and pay tribute to your gods so that they may forgive your transgressions against us as the actions of the ignorant and not those who wish to be punished." he said, motioning them to rise.

They led the gods deeper into the woods beckoning them to follow. Desimiss caught up with Lucifer the young woman who he'd just saved and the god who was leading the group and joined the conversation.

As he approached the god who was leading the group they had just saved was arguing with Lucifer. "So what now? Are we suppose to live off of these creatures as we convince them that we're some type of-"

"God." Lucifer said cutting him off. "Until daybreak and we can build our own homes then yes they shale serve their gods and be justly rewarded when we are able. This was how it should have been from the beginning, instead of us running through the forest like terrified prey." Lucifer continued. "What is your name?"

"Theriot, and don't you think that by not telling them that we've been banished from paradise we're being purposefully deceitful for our own gain." he said.

It was Desimiss who spoke up first. "Should we have left you to die?" he began. "Should Lucifer have slain all of those creatures to save you? Is it wrong that we've aligned ourselves with the most civilized creatures that we've come across thus far to save lives and better our arrival on this unknown world?"

Lucifer was pleased with Desimiss's words and let the weight of them hang between the four of them before he spoke. "Desimiss is right. Regardless of if you agree with my methods or not we all know that If I hadn't intervened you would've all been killed."

"It is not that I am not grateful for your intervention lord, it is just that I do not know if I feel right convincing such a simple species to worship us." the woman said. "And I thank you lord Lucifer for saving me from an unknown but surely sinister fate."

"Do not call him 'lord'. Are you all so quick to forget that it was him who got us all banished from paradise in the first place?" Theriot said. "And where was all of your power when the elders rose against us?"

"I did not drag any of you before the elders of the council, nor did I know that so many of you were powerless and that banishment would be a death sentence for so many. For you this is a banishment because you are weak, but for me and those with the true powers of gods this is freedom. I will not argue with you nor will I change my course. If you would rather take your chances alone in the woods then no one will stop you, but remember that you are responsible for every life you take with you. However," Lucifer began as his tone changed from kind to fear inspiring and his eyes narrowed to a deadly stare. "If you ever speak to me like that again, trying to turn others against me, I will destroy you without hesitation. There will be no conversation and this is your only warning. Do so again and as the words leave your mouth you will cease to exist. Do you understand Theriot?"

Theriot couldn't believe that he had just put in his place so quickly and that no one had spoken up for him and now all eyes were on him, waiting for his response. He had been given a choice. Either he could live while being worshiped like a god or take his chances alone in the forest. After seeing the way that Lucifer used his power Theriot had no doubt that he would die trying to fight him and after hearing him speak with such hate, he didn't dare stand up to Lucifer again. "I understand and it will not happen again my lord." he said with a bow.

"Good and now that that's out of the way I believe our escorts have led us to their home." Lucifer said, as the trees gave way to a village of huts. He was pleased seeing that their luck had changed and no longer were they fighting to survive but were being embraced as the gods they were. Soon they would turn this world into their new paradise.
Prologue Chapter Three

Time passed for the group of gods on the planet that they had fallen on. The creatures that had given them shelter when they first feel had long since turned against them, killing several of them in one night while they slept. When the few in the group that actually had power realized what was happening they slaughtered all of the creatures and took their homes as their own. In just under five years the group of over ten thousand that had been sentenced to banishment was now down to a few hundred survivors. To make matters worse, many of the weaker gods in the group were slowly wasting away simply from being outside of paradise for so long.

Lucifer could tell that his power was failing as well. He had not been able to create life since he had gotten to this planet. He was still the most powerful being on the planet, but if things continued the way they were it wouldn't matter. Even if he was able to survive, he would be own his own once he lost the power to protect everyone else. What worried him the most was that it was not only his power that was falling.

In the five years that followed the fall from heaven he saw many good and innocent people die. The night that the centaurs turned against his people something changed inside of him. His dreams for peace and building a new paradise vanished and were replaced with an all consuming hate. He hated the council for banishing him there and he hated the few strong gods who had once stood with him, but then chose to abandon their brothers once they were free of the gates. He hated the creatures that his ancestors created and he hated his ancestors for creating the gates in the first place. He hated his brothers and sisters in heaven who had just stood by as they were banished, and he hated his brothers beside him, most of who were too weak to even defend themselves. He hated everything from the gates of heaven to the deepest pit of the rock he was forced on. Without the dreams of creating greatness he was driven to madness by his hate. He hid it from the others as best he could as the madness took the hold and he began to have new dreams, dreams of destroying all that he hated so much.

Still he knew that he could not do this alone, and he knew that he could not tell the others about his true intent. He sent Desimiss gather all of those that he considered to be strong enough to be of some help.

"My brothers." he began to the small crowd of sixty or so. "I know that asking you to follow me again is a heavy burden after all that has happened." he said, doing his best to hide the bitterness he felt. Before when Lucifer had spoken, it had come from his heart and had come so naturally that he had never needed to plan out a speech. Before he had been consumed by his hate, it use to pain him to tell a lie. However, he was not the same God that he was back then, In fact he wasn't even sure if he was still a god at all. He still held the power to destroy life, but no longer could he create it. Such titles didn't matter to him now. The only thing that did matter to him was destruction. "However, I have little choice, but to ask you to follow me unless you want to watch everyone of us who is left down here die. We need to get back to paradise and become the gods we once were. We need to tell the others what is really down here. Above all else we need to show everyone in heaven what the laws of the council have made us as a people." he paused, letting the meaning of that last part sink in before he continued. "Look around you. Once all of the gods in heaven were great and powerful. Our ancestors sent their children down here to play and learn because once upon a time one child was powerful enough to do what nearly all of us could not. We must tell our brother and sisters in heaven that if they continue to live by the laws of the council that they will eventually lose what little power they have left. I am not asking you to do this to save my life or your own. Without us our entire race will fall until they can never rise again. So we must march on the gates and demand that we are heard." he said.

There were nods of approval, but no loud cheers of joy and pride. Those days were long gone for most of the gods before him. Satisfied with the response Lucifer left the crowd and went to seek solitude so that he could come up with a plan for what to do when the gate keeper refused to let them in. That was when Desimiss approached him.

"My lord what do you think the council will do once we reach the gates?" he asked.

Lucifer had trained Desimiss to be his second in command over the last five years and he had done a good job. The man that stood before him now was not the cowering helpless boy he had met when they first landed. Instead he was looking at a skilled and battle hardened man who was completely devoted to him. "They will turn us away." Lucifer said. "What we need is a way to break through the gate." he added.

"My lord if it is power that you need then you may take my soul as your weapon for the good of our people." Desimiss said. Unlike the rest of the gods who were losing their power Desimiss had only grown stronger, but he could still see that those around him were suffering and in his heart he knew that Lucifer could save them.

"I thank you my friend, but without anything to focus your soul's power, it would just crash upon the gate like waves on rocks." Lucifer said. Seeing how strongly Desimiss believed his speech made him think that he was doing a great job of pretending that he actually cared about them form more than their usefulness.

"Why not combine my soul with your sword and then cut the gate down, my lord?" Desimiss asked.

"This sword is useless against the gate." Lucifer began. "The spell that protects the gates is old and powerful magic that even I cannot break. It is meant to repel anything created outside of paradise, even if it's created by a god." he explained.

"What if you had a sword that was created in paradise my lord?" Desimiss asked.

"If I bound your soul to a sword made in heaven then yes I could cut through the gates, but that is not really an option is it?" Lucifer said slightly annoyed.

"My lord I will give you my fathers sword that was created in paradise along with my soul." Desimiss said, handing Lucifer the sword.

Lucifer took the sword and looked it over. He had no doubt that it had been created in paradise. With this sword and the power of Desimiss' soul he could cut through the gates and cut down the council as well. "You have done a great service to your people and it will never be forgotten." he said "Tell all of them to be ready and we will march on the gates once the fusion is complete."

"Yes my lord." Desimiss said with a bow. He knew that his own power would never match that of Lucifer's. He knew in his heart that he could make no greater contribution to his own kind than this. His sacrifice would be what let his brothers save paradise.

\---

Lucifer stood before the gates with his new sword in hand and his followers behind him. "We are here to speak to the council." Lucifer said to the gate keeper. He had no doubt that the gate keeper would turn him way, but if he was suppose to be the man that would be here to save his race, not to destroy everything, then he would play the part for as long as he could.

"You have all been banished." the gate keeper said. He was younger than Lucifer and his followers, but he did not show fear. "The council has no wish to speak any of you. Leave now."

"You are mistaken." Lucifer began, raising his sword. "I was not asking." he said thrusting the blade into the gate. The gate did not repel the sword, but it did not yield easily.

"Stop what you're doing at once!" the young gate keeper yelled.

Lucifer paid him no mind as he began to channel the power of Desimiss' soul into the edge of the blade. He had known that the power of another being's soul would be great, but he had no idea that he was going to be wielding so much raw power.

The young gate keeper's face changed as he saw the man's sword begin to cut through the gate's lock. He was young, but he had seen a great deal of horrible things try to force their way through the gate with no luck, so it was easy for him to be brave on the opposite side of the gate. Now that he was looking at the one thing keeping him from a group of over sixty gods, all of witch had been banished and survived the monsters below, slowly being destroyed. He turned and ran to alert the council.

Lucifer was using more power than he had ever seen used, but the gates were made with old magic from long before he had been born. He could tell that he was making progress, but it was still slow going.

As he finished the cut, four members of the council came into view. "How dare any of you show your faces here!" one of the council members said. They were all over a hundred feet away so there was no way to tell which one had spoken, but it didn't really matter.

With the cut finished Lucifer blasted open the gate. "You see how they greet us my brothers and sisters." he began, talking to the warriors that had followed him. "Do you honestly think that they will listen to anything that we have to say? You all remember how they treated us before they sent us down to that miserable place? They didn't want you to learn how to use your power so that they could keep their positions as the unquestioned rulers of heaven. You saw what happened when we simply wanted a little freedom. They could've just opened the gate and let us see for our selves what was out there and then let us come back and apologize for not believing them. But they didn't. They wanted to show everyone that those who questioned them that nothing awaited them but death." He paused as he took the first step back into paradise. "But we aren't dead are we?" he said, eying the four elder council members that were growing closer. "No. We've come back and we will put an end to this councils rule." He paused and pointed his sword at the four council members. "Show them your power and your vengeance!" he said, and his followers charged the council elders. One on one there was no way that Lucifer's supporters could've taken on any of the council elders, but they out numbered the elders an easy fifteen to one. The elders fell quickly, before they could do anything to even thin the angry mob that was making its way towards the chambers of the council.

Lucifer watched as the rage that each of his followers held deep in their hearts came forth. He saw them give into their own hate and let it consume them. It didn't take the followers long long to find and kill all of the elders except one. The oldest of all of the elders. The one who proclaimed their banishment was hiding. The enraged exiles tore through the streets and into the homes of anyone who lived near the council's chambers, killing anyone in their path. Lucifer watched as his dreams of destruction became a reality.

The gate keeper could feel the destruction above him, yet he had been told not to leave. He had been given that order from the eldest god of the council, while the rest of the elders went to fight off the exiles. "You said that he was actually cutting through the gate with a sword?" the elder asked.

"Yes." the gate keeper answered.

"There is no way that he has the power himself to cut the gate which leaves the sword." he said.

"I don't understand Sir." the gate keeper said, having no idea what a simple sword could do to the gate.

"It is an old form of magic, dark in it's very nature, but we have no choice." he said.

"What do you mean that we have no choice?" the gate keeper asked. He was completely confused about everything at this point.

"Their leader is wielding another soul as a weapon inside his sword. No matter what we do about his supporters we don't stand a chance against him as we are. The only chance we have to overpower a weaponized soul is with one. We don't have a choice, give me your key and we can begin." he said.

The gate keeper handed over the four foot long key that he wore like a sword. "What do you need me to do sir?" the gate keeper asked.

"Use all of my knowledge and power to protect heaven for all time." he said. The gate keeper realized that he was not going to become the weapon as he had thought, but that he was going to be expected to wield it against an army alone. The elder read his thoughts and smiled. "Your body is younger than mine and I will give you my all of my knowledge. You stand a better chance wielding my soul, than I do wielding yours." he said.

"I will do my best sir." the gate keeper said. "I will save our home."

Those were the last words that the last elder of the council of heaven ever heard with his own ears. Satisfied with the resolve of the young gate keeper he bound his own soul to the key, while binding his life's knowledge to the gate keepers mind. The gate keeper collapsed to the ground grabbing his head with both hands and screaming out in pain as the countless years of the elders life were imprinted on his brain. As he writhed in pain it seemed like it lasted forever, but when the pain stopped his perception of time was much different and the pain seemed like it had only been there for a passing moment.

He was neither the elder who had collected power all his long life, or the young man who happily guarded the gate. He was probably the last true god left in heaven and he had the responsibility to defend it. He picked up the key that had become far more sword like since the fusion and thought about the area above the council's chamber in the air. In the next moment he was occupying that very same space. He spoke with a commanding voice that had never left his mouth before. "I will not let you destroy this paradise!" he said.

The chaos stopped as all eyes turned on the the last true god for just a brief moment. Then the closest dozen attached. The last god appeared in front of each of them at the same time, literally being in twelve places at once, and cut them all down.

Lucifer saw that his supporters waver in both their anger and their courage. He knew that if he wanted to see true destruction, that he would have to do it himself. He raised his sword and attacked. There were no words spoken. Lucifer said nothing about how he wanted to save his brothers and sisters, or any of the noble ideals that he used to trick his supporters into following him back to the gates. His mind was consumed with the desire to destroy so much that it burned in his soul, and even though Desimiss had lost his conscientiousness when his soul was bound to the sword, he felt Lucifer's hate and it pained his soul.

Lucifer used all of his skill and all of the power he could muster as he hacked away at the gate keeper, but he could not push him back. The harder he attacked the more that he felt his own power draining, but he didn't care. His hate had blinded him to everything, except he desire to kill.

The last god began to speak as he bat away the attacks that were growing weaker with each strike. "You will all face a fate worse than death." he began, using both his soul and the soul of the last elder to open a portal. "The darkness in your hearts has no place in this dimension and neither do you." he continued, as the portal grew bigger and the exiles could feel it pulling them. "You will find a true hell that your souls will never be able to leave."

The pull grew stronger and the exiles began getting pulled through. Lucifer was oblivious to all of it as he shouted in rage and continued attacking the last god. The more that he was consumed by his wicked hatred and desire to destroy the weaker he became until he didn't even have the strength to fight the pull of the portal. He thrashed and screamed as he was pulled through the portal and it closed behind him.
Prologue Chapter Four

Years pasted as the new rule took heaven into a new age of peace. However, the fear that Lucifer had used to motivate his people came to pass and the last true god became known simply as god because there were no others able to live up to the title.

God kept watch over the all of the exiled ones as part of his charge to protect heaven. As time went on he began to feel sorry for the exiles who still lived in this dimension, the ones who had not tried to attack heaven. Without being in paradise they turned mortal. He watched for many generations and decided that they should be given a second chance. He created a mortal version of himself and sent him to live amongst the descendants of the exiles to see if they were worthy of a second chance. At the end of his life, the mortal son indeed found them worthy of a second chance. It was on that day that god chose to let those try and ascend in spiritual purity back to their rightful places as gods.

When man first found the writings of the mortal son of god it told them two things. One, that man had come from the heavens and one day might return. Two that the human soul existed and was one of the greatest power sources in the universe. With modern science man also discovered something that was not in the writings of the mortal son. They found that all things with a soul also have a static electric energy that surrounds their body, keeping their soul withing their body. This energy was named shockhaven energy.

As modern man learned more about the soul and shockhaven they found that in the right hands it was more powerful than any weapon or power source. They used this power to fuel the race into space and the wars that inevitably followed.

As the population of the galaxy grew, so did the number of people that had ascended in spiritual purity. They called themselves immortals, which was fitting since they simply didn't die from mortal means. It did not take the immortals long to tire of the wars of man, so many of them founded their own planet that they called New Heaven. They lived on this planet wanting only to be left alone by the rest of the mortal galaxy, doing their best to ignore the violence of mortal men. However mortals did not trust this planet of gods and new that they had to do something before they found themselves on the receiving end of the gods wrath.
Chapter One

It was late in the evening on Bifoil, a tiny farming world on the edge of the galaxy, and Katelin was standing on her front porch staring up at the stars as usual. She had a plan beauty about her, soft straight hair, clear pale skin, and bright green eyes. Her parents use to say, her mother in particular, that her smile was so warm it protected the crops from the annual frost. This night however, was chilly and Katelin wasn't smiling. She hadn't smiled much since her father died about a year ago.

At the time of the accident she was seventeen and attending medical school. She had always been a smart girl and despite her fathers firm disapproval she had wanted to be a doctor. "God chooses when we die. It's not mans place to interfere." her father had said when she brought up the idea. Her father was a simple man and Katelin knew that his opposition was more about his guilt over her mothers death than anything else. A simple infection combined with and allergic reaction took her mothers life. A small trip to any local doctor and she would've been fine, but it was not the family way. "It builds character", and "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger" were common phrases around her house in the days of her youth. However, after the third straight day of her mother saying that she felt a little flushed no one could wake her. The doctor said that her heart shut down in her sleep and she passed painlessly.

Katelin never blamed her father for her mothers death. No she knew that her mother was far too stubborn to go to see a doctor. She blamed their way of life more than anything else and made a silent vow to held save others from a so called "Peaceful Death" As far as Katelin was concerned death was anything but peaceful.

After her mothers death she tried to move on with her life like before, but the house was lonely with just her and her father and was filled with memories of happier times that left the two of them in a constant state of mourning. As time moved on her father started to cling to her more and more for support when all she wanted to was leave and get as far away from the memories of her mother as she could. Her and her father started to fight more than a teenage girl and a single father should. Then one night after a particularly rough round of yelling that ended with her father saying "I'm glad your mother isn't around to see you now." and Katelin screaming through tears "I hate you and I wish it was you that died instead!", she ran away. She packed herself a few changes of clothes, all the credits that she had saved, and took the time to write her father a note before she left. In the note she told her father that she was going to Beaumont, a good school in the nearby city of Milton, and if he cared about her at all to send tuition. If he didn't then he could consider this her goodbye.

Regardless of how often they fought or how bad those fights got Katelin still had a good father, and after the initial shock of finding her gone and reading her short note wore off her father did some research of his own on Beaumont. Katelin had mentioned it in passing before but he had never given it much thought. It was only after he read into the schools history and how well they compared to other schools that he realized how much thought his daughter had put into her choice. The school was much more affordable than its academic competitors and offered the option to pay a month at a time or by semester. It specialized in the medical fields and even offered a work program where the more senior students could work in the local hospitals to pay for their room, board and tuition. This was not a little girl running away to a friends house to throw a fit. She had been planning this for months, maybe even longer because she was truly unhappy.

It seemed like a wonderful place for Katelin. By the third day after she left he realized she wasn't coming back and that he really only had one choice. If he supported her, told her he was sorry, and that he loved her, then they might be okay. He knew though, that if he marched in to the school, and forced her to leave all her dreams behind, that she would hate him even more. He knew that if he did that then the next time she left she wouldn't leave a note and he would lose her forever. He wept at the the thought and before he even wiped his tears he found a pen and pad and he began to write to his daughter, pleading for her forgiveness.

After the first few days Katelin realized that her father wasn't going to show up and take her back home so at the end of the first week Katelin wasn't so much surprised as she was relieved that her father had sent her first semesters tuition. However she was surprised when she read the letter that had come with her tuition. She had never known her father to be an apologetic or emotional man, and by the third time she read the letter something took hold and she started to cry. No matter how much she thought she meant it she didn't hate her dad. She, like her father, knew what it meant to lose someone you care about and she didn't want to lose him. She just wanted to lead her own life, to be able to be her own person and chase her own dreams. What had clicked was that she didn't have to lose her father to be happy. In his letter he told her that as long as it made her happy and so long as she stayed out of trouble he would pay her tuition and support her in any way he could.

Over the year that followed Katelin and her father rebuilt their relationship through countless letters, phone calls and video chats. Through all of these she told him all about the wonders of medicine and the world outside their farm that she was learning first hand. Her father enjoyed her stories of teenage trials and triumphs. He would give her; advice when he thought she could use it, words of encouragement when she seemed down, and an open mind to vent to when her friends were otherwise occupied. And even though he would tell her not to give up when things got hard, he made sure that she knew should she ever change her mind and want to come home to the farm and stay for more than a long weekend that he would be there waiting with open arms.

Then just after her seventeenth birthday Katelin's father was killed. She left school and went back to the house that she grew up in to see to planning her father's funeral. She had been there when her father had done the same for her mother and after the initial shock wore off she handled it better than most people twice her age. The service was small and consisted of most of the same faces she saw at her mother's. Some of the neighbors that she knew well offered her a place to stay while others offered to stay with her. She politely declined all the offers and went back to her empty house alone. That first night after the service she sat alone and waited. She waited for the grief and pain to overtake her like it had when her mother died and cause the breakdown that she and everyone else knew was sure to come. But it didn't, and as the days skipped by she got back into the rhythm of tending to the farm out of a combination of habit and boredom.

She thought about going back to school. She could sell the house, the farm, and all the equipment finish school and become a doctor in the city and move on. However, the thought that had once been her driving force didn't hold the same magic that it did when she left. Partly because all that the doctors she'd seen ever did was sign off on whatever pills or specialized treatment that their nurses or computers told them was needed. But mostly it was because she realized that the idea of saving everyone was a childish dream and she didn't have anyone else left to save.

All of these things, however, were past pains. Pains that had long since scabbed over and healed to become the memories and experiences that made her into the young woman that was standing here alone on her porch in the middle of the night. These past pains weren't what kept her from smiling that night, or any of the other nights that she'd done the same thing. No this pain came from a longing for something more. She didn't know what else was suppose to be in her life that wasn't, but she knew there had to be more to life than this. Sure the farm she ran grew food hundreds of thousands of people throughout the galaxy, but she knew that if she were to die tomorrow, within a month someone else would be pressing the same buttons on the same machines to run the same farm. So what was she suppose to do with her life to make it worth while, she asked herself in silence day in and day out, but nothing ever came. And it was this lack of purpose that tinged everything in her world dull with the mundane monotony that was her reality. Everything but the stars. The stars held the mystery and wonder that this plane world had lost long ago. So on nights that she couldn't sleep, like this one, she would go out, gaze up and think of all the wonderful adventures to be had. She was no fool though, and between the civil wars, the pirates, the slavers, and whatever other horrors lurked in the perpetual darkness, space was no place for a teenage girl with no clue as to how to defend herself.

She sighed and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Then she saw what she thought was a shooting star and the inner child that she thought had died a long time ago took hold. She squeezed her eyes shut and made a wish. It was a simple wish. Something more. She opened her eyes and watched with envy as she waited for it to shoot across the sky and off into the unknown. But it didn't. Katelin stood there with her mouth open and head slightly tilted, caught somewhere in between awe and confusion as she stared at what she was now sure wasn't a shooting star. Whatever it was it didn't shoot across the sky, it looked like it was falling, and it was getting bigger which meant it was getting closer. As it did Katelin could tell that whatever it was, it was red. At first she thought it was a ship but she quickly decided it couldn't be. There wasn't a port for miles and whatever the red thing was, it was too small to be a ship. It was even to small to be an escape pod. In a split second Katelin's awe and confusion turned into fear as she thought that whatever it was, was heading straight for her. She screamed and threw her hands and arms over her face in what she knew was a pointless attempt to protect herself. Nothing hit her and as she half stood half crouched, still clinched in fear on the porch, she heard the dull thud of whatever it was landing hard in the field, followed by the brief rustle of disturbed vegetation. Then she only heard the silence of the country night.

With the same quickness that the sense of panic had overtaken her it was gone, replaced with an urgency for the need to see, to the know what it was. With that Katelin flew off her porch into the field running bare foot as fast as she could towards the cloud of dust some fifty feet from her house. She reached the impact crater, if you could even call it that. Sure the vegetation was gone but the crater was only five or six feet across and half a foot deep. The crops around the hole were about knee high so it was easy for Katelin to see where the red thing bounced and rolled off to. She followed the trail, still running, and almost tripped over something hard that she couldn't see, but she didn't break stride. She assumed it was just some fragment of the red thing that she was so close to and didn't care and the only reason she looked down at all was to regain her footing. When she looked back up she was at the end of the trail and she saw what it was that had fallen. It was a man, or rather a boy.
Chapter Two

Katelin stood there at a loss staring at the boy with her mouth open and her head tilted to the side. The boy was just over five foot tall, strangely pale, lean but muscular, and covered in nothing but cuts and dirt from head to toe. He looked like he was about the same age as her, maybe a few years younger, but sh wasn't sure. Almost immediately an endless stream of questions began to flood her mind. Who is he? Where did he come from? What should she do now?

Then as if to give her an answer to at least one of her questions she saw the slight rise and fall of his chest.

"He's alive?" she said more as a question of disbelief than a statement. "There's no way" she thought. He fell out of the sky for Christ's sakes. She was slowly shaking her head from side to side when she saw it happen again. This time she rushed to him, knelt down beside him and took his pulse. "Oh my god. He's alive!" she yelled when she found a slow but steady pulse.

Katelin tried to pick the boy up in her arms but couldn't manage. Strange, she thought. Growing up on the farm and being raised by her father had made Katelin tougher than most girls her age. Not overly muscular, but capable. She had been one of only three girls in her class able to lift the adult male training dummy, so she should be able to pick up this boy.

"No stranger than a kid falling out of the sky." she said as she gave up trying to carry him and moved behind his head. She squatted down and was suppressed when she put her arms under his and brought them around his chest. He's solid as a rock, she thought as she felt the firm muscles all around. She had a flashing thought of child body builders and had to laugh at the idea. Her laugh quickly died as she strained to lift the boy up enough to drag him to the house. She realized pretty quick just how far away from the house they were. When she had to stop to take a break she saw that they were only a quarter of the way to the house. She took the time to try and think of a better way to do this, one that might not throw out her back by the time that she got there. She couldn't think of anything that didn't involve leaving the cut, bleeding and broken boy alone in the dirt in the middle of the cold night. No, she had to get him inside, cleaned up and bandaged before he bled out or went into shock.

"Alright kiddo," she said, grunting as she lifted him, resigning herself to the task at hand. "We made it this far." she added to give herself the boost of confidence to handle this.

Katelin drug him the rest of the way to the house and only had to stop two more times before they made it to the porch. Once she got him up the stairs she slid him onto the rug from the hallway. The rug was long, narrow and slid well on the hardwood floor. Dragging the boy on the rug was much easier and she almost wanted to hit herself for not thinking of using the rug to get him to the house house in the first place. But there was no point in beating herself up over not thinking of it earlier. So she slid the boy through her house and into her parents old room. She stood there struggling with the idea that this was somehow disrespectful to the memory of her parents. Then she looked down at the boy and said, "He needs it more than you do." And with that she rushed off to get a bucket of water and a washcloth. Although what she said might have sounded a bit morbid to a stranger, her parents had been more practical than faith oriented I their lives and she knew that her father would've called her foolish for not using his old room or even for not making it her's after so long, since it was the master bedroom and a fair bit bigger than hers.

She came back into the room with several different towels, washcloths and a five gallon bucket of water. She set everything down next to the boy and went around turning on all the lights. One of the benefits of going to medical school in a town surrounded by small farming communities was that they taught you how to do emergency medicine in nearly any environment since at any given point you might find yourself a couple hundred miles from a hospital. Good lighting was very important during the initial clean up and examination of a patent. Between the overhead lights her fathers desk lamp and both of the night stand lights. It was enough light from enough directions that she didn't cast a shadow over the boy no matter where she knelt down to work.

Satisfied with the lighting she sat down and began to clean the dirt and dried blood off of the boy. She started at his face and worked her way down. He had a three inch long gash along his right cheek just under his eye. It wasn't bleeding and Katelin was careful not to reopen it as she worked. That was the case with most of the cuts and scrapes that she found as she worked he way down from his face to his chest, none of them were bleeding. She was a little stunned by one of the slashes on the boy's chest. It was at least half an inch deep and went from his right shoulder nearly all the way to his hip bone. When she began cleaning it she was sure it was going to need stitches, but when she was done it was barely bleeding. It was the same with all his cuts, none of them bled like they should have, and if it hadn't been so late Katelin probably would've been more worried by it. However, as it was she was just happy she didn't have to do the extra work of giving the boy stitches.

When she got to his waist she carefully draped a cloth over his privates. Not that she hadn't seen it before but the idea of handling it herself made her blush. That all went away when she saw the softball sized bruise on his right thigh and realized that the bone was broken underneath. Katelin took extra care with the boys leg and found another bruise down on his shin and another broken bone underneath it too. "Poor kid" she said, knowing that most people never walk without some form of complication after they have multiple breaks in a leg. She almost laughed, "You're lucky to be alive broken leg or not." she said as she stood up to get the first aid kit. After she finished bandaging the boy up and putting splints on both parts of his broken leg she was beyond exhaustion. She was content with leaving all her unanswered questions and what to do with the boy for the following day. So she covered the boy with a blanket, put a pillow under his head and turned off all the lights. Then she went to her own room and was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

\---

Katelin awoke the next morning with a sense of righteous accomplishment that added a quickness to the way that she moved while getting ready for the day. That sense was further fueled when she went to check on the boy. One of his arms was folded over his chest and he was still asleep. Good, she thought, people in a coma don't move and neither do paralyzed people. Smiling she went outside to make sure that all of the farm equipment was working right. There was no reason that everything wouldn't be fine and since it was early in the summer only a few machines would actually be working, but still she went to check. Katelin smiled as she warmly thought of her father telling her how a farmer could check his equipment everyday for years and never have a problem, but the one day he chose to sleep in and neglect his duty he would wake up to see his farmed ruined by those "damn machines", as her father would affectionately call them.

All was well with the machines and everything was working as it should be as usual. After doing the checks by herself for the past year and for as long as she could remember with her parents she had her system checks down to a practiced science that only took forty-five minutes. She could cut it down to a half an hour if she hurried, and today she hurried. She wanted to be there when her new boy woke up. She thought of him as hers anyways. After all she took responsibility for him and after sweating through the night before she felt an attachment to the unknown boy that was new and exciting for her. Not only did she want to be there to ask him all sorts of questions, but also to make sure that he wasn't terrified at waking up in an unknown place.

As she made her way back to the front porch she saw that she hadn't been fast enough. There on the front porch the boy had just hobbled out the front door.

"No wait!" Katelin called out as she ran to the boy. "I'm sorry I wasn't there but you really shouldn't be walking around." she said, as she reached the boy. She put her hand on the boys shoulder and tried to guide him into turning around but he didn't budge.

Instead he reached his arm out, past her, towards the field where he fell and said,"I need my sword."

Great, he's delirious she thought and then began to be more insistent. "No you need to come inside and-" that is until she was cut off by the smacking sound of polished wood hitting the boys palm. She turned around and was stunned to see the boy holding a straight bladed, red handled sword in a high gloss, blood red sheath. "You're a havenist." she said, almost as a question as she stumbled back a step. She'd heard of havenists, but not on Bifoil and never as children, although it made sense that not all of them would be old. Still it made her a little uneasy and she really had no idea what she'd gotten herself into.

The boy went to stand up straighter and answer, but when he shifted his weight back to his right leg his words were cut short as a hiss of pain came out instead. Quicker than Katelin thought was possible the boy's sword clicked against the porch as he used it as a cane just before his leg gave out from underneath him.

"Oh god I'm sorry." Katelin said, as she ducked under the arm that wasn't being used to help him stand. "Your leg's broken, I'm sorry. Let's get back inside." she said.

The boy nodded and with Katelin's help managed to hobble into the kitchen. She pulled out a chair and he sat down, then she ran off to her fathers room to see if he had anything that might fit the boy since he still wasn't wearing any clothes.

"I'll be right back." she called out from the other room.

The boy sat still with both hands holding his sword trying to recall the last days events that had landed him here. He knew his name. He remembered all of his training and missions, at least he thought he did. He remembered everything except how in the hell he got here, where here was, and who this girl was. Was he on a mission, he asked himself. He didn't think so, it just didn't feel right. Then what was it, he wondered. Why was he naked, broken and for all intense purposes lost. Nothing made any sense and he had to ask himself if any of this was even real? There was a thought and it took him right to the idea that this might be some new form of VR training. As soon as the thought took form in the boy's head, his mind was violently bombarded with flashing images and moments of combat that he couldn't remember. However, the images and moments felt so familiar that the boy couldn't deny them as being his own memories.

Katelin came around the corner from her parents room at a tip toe pace. "Umm, hi" she said, to get the boys attention.

He looked up to see her walking towards him with a pile of cloths in her arms. He went to stand up to receive the pile that he was sure was meant for him, but from the sharp pain that he got from shifting in the chair and seeing the girls eyes go wide out of either fear or concern he decided against it.

Katelin handed the boy the sweat pants and tee shirt that she had pulled out of her fathers dresser. "I'm sorry, I know it's not much but it should fit at least." she said. She couldn't help but feel awkward now that the boy was awake. She hadn't really planned out how everything was suppose to happen when he woke up, but still this was far from ideal.

The boy slipped the shirt on and when he went to put the pants on the girl turned away to give him some privacy. Odd he thought as he put them on. Modesty wasn't something that any of the Masters enforced and they surely hadn't felt the need to give him privacy. Then again he had known them since he was a child and had just met this girl. "Thank you." he said, as he finished pulling up the pants.

As Katelin stood there with her back to the boy, she toyed with many ideas as to finding out how much, if any, memory loss the boy was suffering from without causing him to panic. She decided to start with the simple things like names and build from there. So when the boy thanked her she took it as an opportunity to introduce herself and get started.

"Katelin," she said, spinning around. Her shoulder length hair whipped around unbound, and in that moment the boy thought that she was the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen. "My name is Katelin Abbern." she said, extending her arm out for a handshake.

"Eathen," the boy said, taking her hand in his. "My name is Eathen Yeagher."
Chapter Three

The moment that Eathen took Katelin's hand in own all of the fear that this whole situation might be some elaborate test or trap set up by the Galaxy Police Force (commonly known as the GPF) or some rebel faction. This girl was real and she was no soldier, nor did she have any shockhaven control and he silently cursed himself for not noticing before.

"Nice to meet you Eathen." she said. Thank god that he knows his own name, she thought. That little bit alone would make getting him home that much easier. "Is there anything I can get for you?" she continued, motioning towards the kitchen cabinets. "Something to eat or drink maybe, and then we can work on trying to get you home."

Eathen smiled when he realized that the only emotion that he could feel from this girl was her concern for him and his well being. It had been so long since he'd felt either from another person without them having other motives, that he was truly touched. "A glass of water would be wonderful." he said. He really was thirsty and he knew it was rude to refuse refreshments as a guest.

Katelin felt herself start to blush when he smiled at her and quickly rushed off to get the glasses and hide it. "So just water then?" she asked, as she started to fill the glasses.

"Yes, thank you." he said, still trying to figure out how he wound up here. He knew this was real, but every time his thoughts would take him to any of the different Masters or to any of his recent training, night training in particular, he would have more violent flashes of combat with the Masters. From the brief flashes it was live combat he was sure. He'd seen two of the Masters cut nearly in half, one from shoulder to the opposite hip and the other right down the middle, both dead from what he was nearly certain was his sword.

Katelin sat the glasses down and sat in the chair next to Eathen. "You know," she began, sliding a glass over to Eathen. "You Really should eat something. It'll help with the healing process." She could only assume that he was being polite. It was nearly noon and in all of the excitement of the morning and last night she'd missed breakfast herself and was noticing it now. "Really it's no problem, I was going to make myself something anyways."

Eathen smiled and took a sip of his water. "I mean no disrespect and will in no way be offended if you need to eat, but I'm an immortal and don't need to eat as ofter as normal mortals do." he said, trying his best not to sound condescending or ungrateful. Unfortunately he had very little experience dealing with normal mortals, and the few that he had dealt with had always known what he was.

"Oh," Katelin said. She'd never known an immortal before and knew nothing about them other than what the name implied, that they were not mortal in the normal sense. "Is that why you didn't die last night?" she asked, and no sooner had the words left her mouth did she realize how insensitive they sounded.

Eathen looked at her somewhat confused. "I don't really know, but more than likely yes." he said taking another sip of water.

"I'm sorry," Katelin began then looked down at her own glass. "I didn't mean to upset you and I know that it came out all wrong and sounded horrible. It's just that-" she stopped when she looked up and saw him holding up a hand with a smile on his face.

"You have nothing to apologize for." Eathen said, still smiling. He had suffered through far worse attacks on his pride and feelings than Katelin asking a blunt question, but he did find the way that she was worried about offending him amusing. "I wish I could give you a better answer but I have no idea what happened last night or even how I got here to be honest."

"Oh," Katelin said, with a sigh of relief. She was glad that he wasn't upset and that he seemed just as tough mentally as he was physically. And over all he seemed to enjoy talking with her and she with him. "Well..." and she began to tell him about the night before. As she went on she began to relax and feel more at ease with the boy, who kept an attentive gaze fixed on her that she couldn't help but blush a little when their eyes met. In the gaze of his deep gray eyes she felt small. Not in an insignificant way, but as though those eyes held an understanding of things beyond her comprehension. More than that though, she felt warm and safe in his gaze. She liked the feeling even though she didn't fully understand it.

Eathen listened to Katelin as she told him how he had fallen from the sky, how she had drug him up to the house from where he fell and then cleaned and treated all of his various wounds. He had to admit to himself that he'd underestimated her before. She was tough, knowing that he was twice her weight at least, and she was smart and skilled too. When he'd woken up he'd thought the bandages were done better than any that he'd received before by the professionals at the training facility. Now he knew who to thank.

"Well I suppose I owe you even more thanks." he said inclining his head in a bow.

"You don't have to thank me." she said, standing up and putting a hand on his shoulder gently. Then she went to the counter top. "I'm gonna make myself a sandwich. Are you sure you don't want anything?" she asked.

Eathen looked up and smiled. "No, I'm fine, but thank you though." He looked back down into the half empty glass and went back to thinking about how he wound up here. Katelin had told him the name of the planet and what it was close to during her story of how he got to the planet, but he didn't even remember having a reason to be in the system it self. Not only that but something was holding him back from seeing these flashes as whole memories. He looked down at the sword that was laying across his lap and that was when he realized it had changed. It use to be white, not red. He knew it was the same sword that he had always carried. He could feel the same soul that had always been inside it even if he couldn't form a proper connection with it in his weakened state. He knew that presence even if it felt distant and cut off. He knew his sword. Why hadn't he noticed it before, he wondered. Then he thought back to almost falling and using it as a cane and gave it up to having other things on his mind. Then he thought of why his sword might have changed, and he made a connection.

"Katelin," he said, turning towards her. "When I was falling last night you said I looked like a bright red ball right?"

"Yeah red, the same as your sword." she said, grabbing her plate and sitting back down beside him. "It'll be okay even if you can't remember how you got here." She could see the wheels turning as his eyes were closed tight and she could tell he was trying to make sense of everything that had happened and find the missing pieces. "You still have the rest of your memories so you know where you're from so we can get you home to your parents."

Eathen made the connection that it was his shockhaven that had protected him upon entry to the planet, but his shockhaven energy had always shown white, the color of joy and pride. Red was the color of anger and rage and he had to wonder what could have mad him so angry that he was consumed with enough furry to even corrupt the purity of his sword. Then he thought back to the flashes of violence that he was growing to accept he had done. He realized that the red glow that covered everything in these flashes was coming from him. And as his thoughts went back to try and remember what could've caused him to burn with an all consuming, murderous rage Katelin's angelic voice broke into his separate train of thought and he heard her say "...your parents..." and all of his wonder was ended abruptly as his mind was assaulted by the truth.

Eathen was looking at a video feed of a man in his late twenty's dead on a lab table surrounded by men in white coats with face masks and power tools. The man was very familiar, although he was hardly recognizable. The men in white coats had cut him into pieces. As his chest lay open and the top of skull was removed one of the men casually asked another. "Do you think we have enough material for the replication process?" The other man nodded. "Good, although it seems like such a waste." the first man continued. He looked at the other man across from him over the table waiting for a response.

The other man simply shrugged and said. "He was given a choice you know, but he refused the offer, saying that the whole idea of project Yeagher was totally appalling." The video stopped and Eathen knew the face. It was his own just a few years older. The man torn apart on the table was the father he'd never know.

The next moment he was looking at another video. In this one there was a woman, probably the same age as his father. The woman was in a rounded bio-tank that looked like an over sized, transparent egg. The tank was on a circular track and was moving with some considerable speed. Like the first video this one was also filled with men in white coats. One of the men walked to another man who was sitting at a monitor. "Given the average span of time from insemination to birth how much can we increase the artificial gravity without killing the subject?" he asked.

The man at the monitor hit several keys then looked back at the first man and said, "Without killing the subject or the host we can safely get to roughly twenty times the standard by the time of birth."

"The host is expendable." the first man said. "Project Yeagher is far more important than the host. Besides the host already has a slim chance of living through the entire process and will never make a recovery worth living for. So how high can we push the artificial gravity keeping just the subject alive?"

"Anywhere from thirty to forty times standard depending on when the host dies." the man at the monitor said.

"Do it." the first man ordered and walked away.

The video ended and the memory faded to the nothingness of closed eyes. Then the nothingness began to glow bright red, burning with the furious anger that he had forgotten until now. The GPF had killed his parents. They died so he could be made into some sick science experiment and lied to for as long as they could manage.

The pure rage fueled hatred that Eathen felt at that moment turned the rest of his thoughts into a incoherent blur as the images of his parents that he'd never know and the dead masters along with the cruel words from the video played in his mind on a random loop.

From somewhere that seemed forever away he heard the sound of breaking glass and someone calling his name. At the sound of the voice the anger began to subside and Eathen was left with a sadness that was just as consuming.
Chapter Four

The flagship of the Galaxy Police Force's armada was a massive super structure that looked more like a space port or a colony than an actual ship. It was made up of four diamond shaped structures each nearly two kilometers long and a kilometer wide and deep. The four diamonds connected to a spherical command center that was about a half a kilometer in diameter to make a four pointed star. It was armed with every known weapon and a few that remain unknown. Everything from laser cannons, rockets, rail guns, solid shell rounds to plasma cannons. All ranging in size from small anti-air and space craft guns to massive orbital bombardment cannons that could reduce a major landmass to a parking lot in minutes. Its defenses were just as impressive with a variety of different particle and deflector shields for both solid shell and energy weapons along with missile defense lasers and interception missiles. In addition to its unbreakable defense it was unheard of for the flagship to travel alone, and it was almost always under the guard of at least one fighter squadron. In all the ship was an invincible power that brought fear and death to the enemies of the GPF where ever it went.

It was in this massive flagship that the Grand Commander of the GPF, Grand Commander Alex Shaw III, found himself spending all of his time in recent years. The galaxy as a whole was not as supportive of the GPF as many, including Shaw, thought they should be. The people wanted to rule themselves, they all wanted democracy. The idea use to make Shaw laugh before so many attempts on his life forced him to take permanent residence here. Shaw was in his mid fifties with peppered gray hair that gave him a distinguished look to match well with his stern military appearance. In Shaw's eyes the common man was a fool plane and simple. They all spoke out about how slavery was wrong and how they needed equality and a voice in the galaxy. These were ideals nothing more. They were childish and useless. Take away slavery and whole planets will starve, economies will crash and he would have to deal with the chaos that would come within months. No, in Shaw's opinion the galaxy needed stability not to try to change and please whatever wild idea's the common man came up with. And since he was in control of the galaxy it would be as he saw fit.

Shaw's father built the flagship during the days of his rule and named it "The Righteous Hand" as a symbol of power that would keep the idea of revolution just that, an idea. One that was never spoken upon and never acted upon. It only took the complete destruction of one moon colony for everyone to get the point that. After that Shaw's father considered his project a success. However, unlike his father, Shaw believed that he understood that for all the good The Righteous Hand did for the GPF it made just as many problems. Balance, as Shaw understood it, was the way of the universe. So the symbol of the Righteous Hand told the people that the GPF was too big for open rebellion to succeed and too big for small acts of rebellion to fail.

In truth the random small pockets of rebellion were not even bothersome enough to warrant Shaw's attention individually, and certainly weren't enough to mobilize the Righteous Hand. These were things like; police stations being bombed repeatedly or being over run; supply shipments being stolen or destroyed, or really any of the countless other acts aimed at weakening the local GPF. They weren't just individual problems though, and each one fed the fire. It didn't matter if the rebels responsible were caught or not. If they were found and then dealt with they became martyrs. If they got away then they became the silent, faceless hero's of the common man. Each of these hero's, each martyrs, and every act that they committed became legions, and all of which added more fuel to the fire.

It was this problem that Shaw had come up with "Project Yeagher" to solve in his younger years. The ultimate warrior able to deploy instantly, without support, and destroy whatever enemies of the GPF. To become the phantom, the demon in the night to drive fear back into the hearts of the common man. It was only after the project had begun and Shaw had taken his father's place at the head of the galaxy that Shaw realized the subject was a perfect solution for many of the other problems that the GPF had as well.

Unfortunately the base charged with maintaining and training the project, went black twelve hours ago. Shaw already had assumed the worst, but he was now waiting on the formal brief from the recon team that was dispatched. Of course it wouldn't actually be the recon team that would give Shaw the brief. No, he doubted that anyone on the recon team had the clearance to make into "the dome", the name given to the sphere at the center of the Righteous Hand, let alone the "inner circle" the name given to the core of the dome that was reserved for individuals with the highest level of clearance. That meant that other than the photos, video and typed reports all of the information that he'd get would be second hand at best. He hated that aspect of his position more than anything else. He knew that he would have questions that a more junior office wouldn't think to ask, and after a twelve hour mission getting a hold of the recon team would be a brand new mission in and of itself. This was the reason that Shaw had spent so much time looking for his second in command and was pleased with the man he'd found to do the job.

His door chimed and Shaw readied himself behind his desk, made sure that his uniform was straight and opened his office door.

Commander Jack Mustove was as battle hardened as he was confident and Shaw was pleased when he saw him walk through the door. Off duty and out of uniform Shaw and Mustove were close friend who would often play cards, drink and do all the other things that senior officers do together, but this meeting was about business. Shaw knew his friend well enough to know not to expect anything but the up most professionalism from him in uniform. It was one of the many things that Shaw respected about the man.

"Commander Jack Mustove reporting as ordered Sir!" Mustove said, as he stopped the prescribed ten paces in front of the Grand Commander's desk. Then almost the same instant as he stopped he rendered a crisp salute.

Shaw stood and returned the salute. "Good evening Commander. Your report on the base if you please." He said. Shaw himself had never been one for the strict formalities that the GPF had come to use over the years but even if he didn't like it he saw its purpose and respected it. Still he was far more concerned with the status of the lunar base and more so with the status of the project itself.

"Yes Sir. Mustove said, pulling a small projector from his pocket and walking forward to Shaw's desk. The gravity of the situation was horrible and Mustove took a deep breath before turning the projector on. The projector came to life and the image of the lunar base as seen from the moon's orbit appeared in the space above Shaw's desk. Shaw gasped and Mustove gave him a moment to take it all in before he began. The image that was hovering above Shaw's desk looked as though someone had drawn an eight pointed star over a quarter of the surface of the moon itself. The reality was far worse. "As you can see Sir there's only one possible explanation at this point." Mustove said, changing to a closer picture. In this one Shaw could make out the deep gouges in the moon's surface that seemed to go on for miles and were too deep to see the bottom of. "The general consensus is that Project Yeagher had a soul explosion during his normal night training. As you can see there's not much hope of finding any leftovers from the base it self. In addition what you can't see is that because of the quick change in mass the moon's gravitational pull shifted and has lost 45% of its atmosphere. It's now not able to support human life on its own. The recon team wasn't ready to do an extended airless opp. So I've arranged for another team to do a full ground comb over but I doubt that they'll find anything more substantial than building material." Mustove let loose a sigh as Shaw flipped through the images of the ruined base. "In addition to the base we've lost all of the Masters. All of them are presumed dead."

Shaw turned off the projector and passed it back to Mustove. "So," he began, talking not so much to Mustove as he was himself. "We know how effective the soul explosion is now. I suppose the next logical step would be to make them slightly more stable and docile to avoid this type of incident from happening again."

Normally Mustove wouldn't have spoken out, but this was not just some regular day. "Sir, with all due respect Project Yeagher is a failure. On top of that with the base destroyed and the Masters dead the idea of restarting the project is outrageous." They had lost so much gained nothing. He felt it was his duty to try to make his friend and fellow officer see reason.

Shaw waved away his concern as though it was nothing. "The project isn't a failure, we just need to modify it, add a few more controls. That's all."

"But the base and the Masters." Mustove began, trying to point out the heavy and irreplaceable losses from the first attempt.

Again Shaw gave a dismissive wave. "There are other bases for research and development that could be used. We can use the training data from the first subject along with live trainers in place of the Masters." Shaw said. This was all coming back together nicely he thought to himself. This was where he and Mustove differed. Even though Project Yeagher was strictly geared towards military applications in its heart it was, and even in its current stage it was, a scientific experiment. There were bound to be a few bumps along the path to the ultimate power, but they were so close. They couldn't give up now.

Shaw continued on lost in thought for a moment and Mustove regarded his friend with a look of confused fear that a more aware man would've noticed. He had never known Shaw to be an emotional or even compassionate person, but this was something else entirely. He had just received the report on one of the worst training accidents in history, nearly ten-thousand soldiers and personnel were unaccounted for, no doubt dead, over 2.3 billion credits in property damage and of course there was the whole part where they had just made a planet uninhabitable and possibly disrupted its orbit. After hearing all of this Shaw didn't even flinch. No his reaction was much worse, Mustove thought to himself. He couldn't believe that Shaw wanted to start the whole damn thing over again.

"Although" Shaw began, interrupting Mustove's troubled thoughts. "With the Masters dead the real problem lies with testing and practicing their skills." He paused and although Mustove wanted to say something, he knew better than to speak out again. He had made his opinion known and anything more would be insubordination. "I think we should have more than one subject for this next round." Shaw continued.

Mustove couldn't even bring himself to speak without shouting, so he simply nodded. He force himself to calm down so that he could speak when Shaw didn't respond "If there's nothing else Sir then I really should head back to my quarters." he said. He had no desire to be a part of this any more than he had to, and he certainly didn't want to be around for the brain storming.

"No that will be all." Shaw said, straightening his uniform jacket and shifting in his chair. "Thank you for your report Commander. You are dismissed." Shaw watched as Mustove bowed and took his leave. Then he went back to planning the future of his pet project. He liked the idea of having more than one subject this go around but two wouldn't work. They would become more powerful and skilled then their trainers, match each others strength, and eventually plateau. Then he started thinking about if there were three subjects and he loved the idea. He could even create three different AI's, each favoring a different Master and have one assigned to each subject. It was perfect he thought and so he sent out the order to restart Project Yeagher.
Chapter Five

"Eathen!" Katelin called again reaching for him. He'd just shattered the glass he was holding and now he was glowing red. "Eathen!" she cried. She was scared and had no idea what was happening, but she still reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders with both hands. When she touched him the glow started to fade and his muscles started to relax. She blinked away the tears that had begun to cloud her eyes and when she looked back at Eathen she saw that he had tears flowing down his cheeks. "Eathen" she said, relieved to see that he was coming back. Slowly and gently she brought her hands down from his shoulders to his hand that had been clenched tightly since he shattered the glass. Gently she guided him into opening it. She was ready for the blood and to pull broken bits of glass out of his hand. Instead his hand was unmarked and clear sand fell from between his fingers. She looked back to his eyes and when she meant his gaze she saw pain and sorrow. It was the same pain that she knew too well, but had never seen in his eyes before this moment.

Thinking back to the moment just before she lost him Katelin asked, "What happened?" Though in part she already knew the answer.

Through tear filled eyes Eathen looked at Katelin and steadied his voice. "They killed my parents." he managed to say before he broke down again.

Katelin held him close and let the boy cry on her shoulder. Unlike people falling from the sky, parents dying was something that Katelin knew too well. "Come on." she said softly, as she helped up. Making sure to steer him clear of the broken bits of glass that he hadn't crushed to sand, she lead him into her parents room. Though at this point she wasn't sure if it would even cut his bare feet or not This time, with his help, she got him into the bed. She sat down beside him and continued to hold him close while he wept.

In between his broken sobs Eathen repeated over and over again, barely above a whisper. "They died because of me." and "I'll never even know their names."

Katelin didn't bother asking what he meant or arguing with him. She didn't sit there and insist that everything would be okay. She knew that nothing she could say to him at this moment would help him feel better. So she did the only thing she could do for him. She held him in silence letting him know that he wasn't alone and they stayed this way until they both fell asleep.

\---

Katelin was the first to wake up later that day after the two of them had slept for a little over three hours. She moved gently as she got out of the bed trying not to wake up Eathen as she went. She went back into the kitchen, took one look at the sandwich that she'd only managed to take one bite out, and decided to make herself another one.

Eathen woke up as Katelin first started to get out of bed, but didn't let her notice that he was awake. He had troubled her enough he thought and so when she was out of sight he sat up and began to contemplate his options, the few he had left at this point.

Right after Katelin finished her sandwich she went to check on Eathen. She stood in the doorway and wasn't surprised to see him awake. He didn't strike her as a heavy sleeper and with the way that he seemed to have already known she was coming, even though she hadn't made a sound she knew that he'd been up. "Would you like me to go?" she asked softly.

"No not at all." he said. "Thank you for earlier."

Katelin sat down next to him. "It's no big deal." She began. But when she saw that he really meant it she added. "But I'm glad that I was able help." She smiled kindly and Eathen returned a much weaker one. "So you remember what happened?"

Her smile was gone but Eathen saw a firm look of understanding in her eyes that he hadn't noticed before. "Some of it." he began. "Or rather enough of it to know what happened." he paused, trying to think of a way to tell her that would make sense.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." she said, trying to be understanding of the fact that they'd just met.

"It's not that I don't want to tell you, it's just that." he paused not sure how to go on but the look in Katelin's eyes said that there wasn't a wrong way so he continued. "It's just that it's a long story and I'd have to start from the beginning for it to make any sense at all."

She smiled and pointed to his leg. "You're going to have to stay off your feet for a while, and if you don't mind the company I'd really like to hear it." She started to blush and he looked at her slightly confused as to why. "You're a lost kid Eathen." she said, scratching her head. "The first thing I should've done, the first thing any sane person would've done, was call an ambulance or the police. But I didn't and I'm not sure why." She stood up and started pacing around the room. "It just didn't feel right, I don't know, you didn't feel right." She smiled and blushed. "Not like that, but I don't know how but I knew you were different from everything else, that somehow you were special." she paused for a moment and saw that he was both really touched and a little uncomfortable. "I know that we just met and I don't want to come off creepy or anything but it would be nice to get to know you."

"I don't think you're creepy at all." Eathen said quickly, and Katelin sat down next to him. He had also felt something he couldn't explain from the first time they'd meant. "You've been really nice to me this whole time. I just had what you might call an unusual childhood to say the least."

"Yeah most normal kids don't stumble around naked looking for swords with broken legs the morning after they fall from orbit." she said sarcastically. "So start at the beginning."

"Well I suppose my earlier memories are of training with Master Jason." Eathen said.

"What kind of training?" she asked.

"Applied shockhaven combat training." he said.

"Umm, I don't know anything about shockhaven really." she said.

"Oh." Eathen said surprised. He'd always thought it was common knowledge, but he'd studied it so much that explaining it was easy. "Well, every person has a soul and your soul is contained in your body by a static electric field. This field is called your shockhaven. Some people are born with a better connection and natural ability to use their shockhaven than others, but the general idea is that anyone with the right amount of training can learn to manipulate and control their shockhaven. But," he began, adding the words of caution that everyone should be given. "The idea of using your shockhaven shouldn't be taken lightly. The time it takes to regenerate differs wildly from person to person along with how much shockhaven energy that they have to begin with. And when that energy runs out there's nothing left to bind your soul to your body and you die."

"So I assume that if you're an immortal that you've got more shockhaven energy and that it regenerates faster than most mortals." Katelin said. This was all new to her and interested her very much. It was as if a whole new world had been open to her.

"For the most part yes, but really it's more like a muscle. Even though everyone is born with different levels the more that a havenist uses their shockhaven the more energy they can maintain and the faster it recharges."

"Okay, so was Master Jason an immortal like you?" she asked.

"No." Eathen said, with a smile. "As far as their purity goes all of the Masters were mortals, but as far as their power went they were all probably the most powerful mortals in the known galaxy."

"So why were they training you?" She asked. Katelin was trying to avoid asking him about his parents, not knowing if he was ready to think about them again.

"Well they were hired by the Galaxy Police to train me. The GPF wanted me to become their next super weapon. The plan was for me to become skilled and strong enough to destroy rebel uprisings throughout the galaxy on my own." Eathen said, and as he did he seemed to age a great deal with worry and regret.

"So tell me about training with Master Jason." Katelin said.
Chapter Six

It was early in the morning I think, but on the moon that the base had been built into it was hard to tell what part of the day it really was. Regardless I had just woken up less than an hour before my first day of training under Master Jason began. He and I stood facing each other ten feet apart in an empty training room. As always I was armed with my sword, but back the I wore it across my back from my left shoulder. Master Jason was unarmed, but I'd never seen him carry a sword, so this was no surprise.

"Eathen." Master Jason began, "The other Masters have told me that you have been progressing beyond their previous expectations."

I knew it was an attempt to make me over confident. What I didn't know until months later was that he wanted me to see his trap and act accordingly. That was the way he was, calm, cool, and calculating. I bowed politely. "Thank you." I said.

"Our training will be simple. We will take the basic skills you've learned so far and I'll teach you new ways to use them. If you're ready I would like you to try to score an unblocked blow." he said. It made sense that I hadn't started training with Master Jason until now. He and the other Masters wanted me to reach a certain skill level before he began.

"With or without my sword Sir?" I asked. Up until now I had been training under Master Chen who's specialty was martial sword art and was at least twenty years Jason's senior. Not that it mattered. Master Jason was the youngest of all the Master, at least he looked it, but it was in the unique way that he saw the universe and in turn used his shockhaven that made him truly powerful. Still I liked my chances with my sword rather than without it.

"With the sword if you prefer, but don't focus solely on sword strikes. Any solid strike will do. Oh, and Eathen don't hold back." And with that Master Jason brought his right foot forward in a staggered stance, put his left hand behind his back, raised his right hand halfway in a defensive posture and nodded.

I kicked off and left the ground and the height difference between the two of us behind. When I crossed half the distance between us I fired off two shots of shockhaven energy blasts from my right hand as I brought it up to draw my sword. I aimed the first shot high and the second low to try to draw his arm down far enough to prevent him from being able to bring it back up again to block. It was a predictable assault, but as much as he was testing me I was testing him. Master Jason deflected both blasts with a small flick of his wrist, but I was already committed to the charge and he was unarmed so I focused a great deal of energy in the blade as I drew my sword bringing it down in a diagonal strike that would've cut clean through solid steal or stone with ease. However, he not only blocked the blow but he caught it between two fingers stopping me dead in the air.

"Precision will always win over raw unfocused power." Master Jason said, and with one quick pull he pulled the sword from my grip and tossed it aside all in one fluid motion.

I dropped down and unleashed a furry of hand strikes in a random order aimed at his midsection and face. He knocked them all aside with the same deft movement of only is right hand. As I threw punch after punch I reached out with my shockhaven, found my sword and pulled back to my hand. As I caught my sword in my right hand I shot another shockhaven blast with the left. With the same two fingers that caught my blade he redirected the blast into the ceiling as though it was his own. The distraction was enough for me to regain control of my sword and bring it across in a horizontal slash. He leaned back avoiding the blade by a small measure and I stepped forward brought the blade back across and pressed the attack. To me my slash weren't wild or predictable, but focused quick and continuous. Some he blocked, others he dodged, but he was being pushed back to the wall.

It was a sound tactic, he would be trapped and unable to dodge and therefor have to block everything, and I could slip in a left hook or a kick. I brought down a vertical slash that with one step to the left he dodged and before I could change the direction of the blade and slash across his mid section he caught it. I brought up my left hand for a point blank shockhaven blast to Master Jason's face, but before I could focus the blast he inclined his head and blinked. An unseen force knocked me clear across the room into the opposite wall. I slid down to my knees and looked up only to see that Master Jason had cleared the distance between us. He stood in front of me holding my sword by the blade with the handle just shy of my shoulder.

"That was good." Master Jason said as I stood back up, took my sword and returned it to its sheath.

"With all due respect sir, no it wasn't. I failed. You didn't even have to use both hands." I said. My head was bowed in defeat. I'd been both beaten and humiliated. Physically I was fine, but my pride was shaken in the face of failure.

"You did well enough and that fact that you were humble throughout the whole bout shows that you have strong character. The disappointment that you're feeling shows that you take great pride in your skills, but you're not over confident or conceded. Also you didn't give into frustration or anger and lose your concentration. You fought with an even temper, using the skills you've been taught and openly admitted defeat. As I'm sure Master Chen may have told you the best way to get to know someone is to fight them." I nodded and he smiled back at me. "Well that is one philosophy he and I share. I think that you will take to the training quite well. The point to this little speech is that you shouldn't see this as a failure but as the beginning of growth. Understood?"

"Yes sir." I said. I gave a nod and smiled with new found enthusiasm for the training.

"Good." he said, returning the smile and the nod. I was beginning to like Master Jason more and more. He was less cut off, less distant, than the other Masters. "So let's go back to the beginning of the bout and see how you could've done things differently."

I thought for a moment, trying to come up with a different opening that would've been better but given the distance that I started with and the reach of my sword I didn't see any better options. "I thought that the two blasts was the best option to close the distance and engage you in close combat sir." I said. I wasn't trying to justify my option, but I didn't see a better way or else I would've tried it instead from the beginning.

Master Jason nodded. "It was as good as anything else, and the fact that you purposely staggered the blasts was a nice touch." he paused for a moment. "I think you're missing the point here. I don't want you to try and change what you did but how you did it and what would've made it more effective. So, keeping that in mind, do you know how I was able to bat aside the blasts so easily?"

The question caught me off guard. "I just thought it was because you're more powerful than me." I said.

He chuckled, "No, not in the slightest. However, my control is greater. You shot them off and just let them go in the direction without any further control. Normally you wouldn't have to worry about anything stopping them, but a skilled havenist can take control of an object in motion and alter it's path with little effort. Now if you were to maintain control and another havenist tried to alter their course it would become a contest of strength and control that would require more energy than simply blocking, dodging, or using counter blasts. Additionally, if you maintain control you can redirect missed blasts to prevent collateral damage, or hit an unsuspecting target from behind. So from now on maintain control of your blasts until they reach their target."

"I will Sir, thank you." I said with a slight bow. "So if you maintain control you could even dodge counter blasts or change the speed of the blast it self?" I asked, almost thinking out loud of all the different possibilities that could be adapted to a combat situation.

He nodded. "Yes. You could do a number of different things and we can go more in depth with that later, but first I'd like to continue through the rest of our bout." he said.

I was disappointed for a small moment then realized that if Master Jason wanted to continue that there was even more to learn. "Yes Sir." I said, letting my excitement show.

"So then you came down with a very powerful vertical slash draw. Think about what I said to you after I caught your sword and tell me how I managed to stop you from cutting me in half." he said. He was going move buy move but he wasn't telling me that the moves themselves were wrong, but rather how I was doing them.

"Well I would've said that you over powered me but I don't really know." I said, running back through the sword draw and the catch that Master Jason made. I was trying to see what he was getting at, but I couldn't make the connection and reluctantly told him. "I'm sorry Sir, but I can't think of any way that you could've caught my blade without overpowering me Sir."

"I suppose that was a trick question, because I did overpower you while at the same time using a great deal less power than you did." he said, and I gave him a hesitant nod since I didn't fully grasp what he was saying. "This is where the way in which we view the universe comes into play. The universe itself is an endless three dimensional plane spreading infinitely in all direction. All matter in the universe however is four dimensional, in that it has some measure of height, width and depth, the first three dimensions, and is in some way effected by time." he paused, letting it all sink in.

I still didn't see the connection between his view of the universe and him catching my sword. But I understood the idea behind his viewpoint and ran with it. "So you and I are four dimensional beings on, or in a three dimensional plane." I said, trying to make sure I was understanding him correctly.

"And your sword and this room are also four dimensional and all fall on the same grand three dimensional plane." Master Jason continued. "As you drew your sword the path that it would take was decided. All I had to do at that point was put more energy then was in the small point of you sword that I intercepted with with my fingers."

"Precision over power." I said as I wrapped my head around the whole idea. What he was talking about wasn't some new form of martial arts or some strange shockhaven technique. This was more or less just insanely fast scientific and mathematical calculations that had become so ingrained into everything that he did that these calculations had become second nature and had given Master Jason a far different and much more practical view of the universe.

"Precisely." Master Jason replied with a satisfied smile and a nod. "Now while building on that principal and moving forward through our bout we'll find the third and final lesson that we'll focus on for the time being." he paused, and I hid the excitement and joy of the thought of using this newly gained knowledge, or at least I tried to. Master Jason already had picked up on it and flashed a quick grin my way before he continued. "So aside from the obvious idea that I'm somehow fast enough to block an all assault from an immortal student of Master Chen that's a fraction of my age with only one hand, how did I?"

I almost jumped when I made the connection. Beaming with pride I said, "You used your shockhaven to see the paths of the blows."

"For the most part yes. The skill that you're referring to is known as haven awareness. In a sense it is the ability to see with your shockhaven rather than your eyes. You begin by extending your shockhaven outward from your body without making it solid. In this field you'll feel everything, the ground, the ceiling, the small particles in the air, all of it. Most havenists can tell the difference between living beings, solid material and air. However." Master Jason said and began to stare off. "If you apply the fact that we are all four dimensional beings in a three dimensional plane, and you place yourself at the center of this plane in your mind and if you become proficient you will have gained what some of you more elder immortals have called 'Sight Beyond Sight'." This was the third time that he had felt the need to remind me that he was not an immortal. And where as I'm not sure if I noticed it then, or if it came later, but Master Jason was not fond of immortals at all. None of the Masters were. Master Jason however didn't seem to hold it against me. "Regardless of what it's called." Master Jason continued, seeming to come back from wherever his mind drifted off to. "You will need to master the use of this sight, or begin to at least, to make much use of everything I have to teach you. So," he began and held out his hand to either side. In his left hand he held a three foot long solid black cloth maybe half a foot wide. In his right hand he had a three and a half foot long wooden rod with a strange orb at the tip. Both had appeared out of thin air and Master Jason just smiled. "Let's begin." he said.

He held out the cloth and nodded and I could tell that he wanted me to take it. "I'm not sure I understand Sir" I said, as I took the cloth.

"Oh, well it's pretty simple. That is a blindfold. And this," he said, striking his open palm with the rod like a paddle. It had the same familiar smacking sound of wood connecting with flesh that I had grown to know very well from my training with Master Chen. "This is a haven-scepter. You're going to put on the blindfold and using your haven awareness you're going to block the blows from the haven scepter."

I put the blindfold on and took up a defensive stance. I wasn't sure if I was actually sensing it or if it was just my mind playing tricks on me but I could see the room around me in my mind. It was all in a grainy, black and white sort of cartoonish look, but I could feel myself, Master Jason, his haven-scepter and the rest of the room.

"It's up to you but I would recommend you get use to how your sword feels, or looks, in you haven awareness." Master Jason said in his same even tone. I could see his voice as the sound rippled like waves as it moved through the air outward from him and bounced off everything. It was amazing. I understood at that moment why Master Jason spoke with so much passion about the beauty of seeing the world like this.

I drew my sword and it shown so bright that my instincts too over and I moved to try to block the blinding white light with my hand. Then I realized just how foolish I must look to Master Jason and lowered my hand.

"Use your shockhaven to surround it and contain the energy." Master Jason said. I followed his instructions and the glow was contained to the blade. "Good. Although if you learn to let your shockhaven penetrate objects you won't have that problem. Are you ready?"

I could still sense the vibrations as Master Jason spoke, but I prepared myself and did my best to put my awe aside for the moment to concentrate on the task at hand. "Yes sir." I said, knowing I was as ready as I'd ever be.

He drew back the scepter with one hand and swung horizontally. I blocked with my sword, but I wasn't ready for the strength of the blow and it knocked me off balance. The follow up seemed to come instantly and I moved my blade a little to far to the outside and the orb of the scepter connected with my chest. Everything in my haven awareness went white and I went flying. The only thing that stopped me was the unforgiving steal wall that I'm sure I dented with as hard as I hit it.

"Maintain your focus Eathen." Master Jason called as I got up slowly. "You can use your shockhaven to control your own movement as well." I got to my feet and put my pride aside and focused my attention only on trying to avoid being batted around the open room.

Despite my best efforts Master Jason was still continuing to land strikes. However, they were becoming less and less frequent as the day grew to a close and the distance that each strike sent me was decreasing as well.

"That's enough for today." Master Jason said, after roughly four hours of continuous combat. "Go ahead and take off your blindfold and relax."

I pulled off the blindfold that, like the rest of my clothes, was soaked with sweat. Opening my eyes was painful because of how long they'd been shut and how bright the room was, but they adjusted fast enough. I know now that all of the things that my body did, and still does, on its own come from how much thought the scientists and doctors put into making me a better weapon, but back then I took it all for granted. When my eyes adjusted to the light and I looked at Master Jason, my respect for the man jumped again. Where as I was panting, wet and doubled over in a combination of pain and pure exhaustion he stood tall. His breathing was even and calm and he didn't have a drop of sweat on him.

I tried to straighten up more for my own pride then to show respect in the presence of one of the Masters. "Relax Eathen. You did good. Very good. Go back to your quarters and rest, you have more than earned it. Also get yourself something to eat as well."

"Yes Sir." I said, as I finally got my breathing down to a respectable level. I went to give him back the blindfold only to see that it had disappeared already.

The self confident smile that Master Jason was giving me told me that he had plans for my future. "I plan on teaching you everything that I know so that one day you won't stare in awe at my skills." he said. With that he left the room and I gave up trying to maintain my composure and fell to the floor. Later I could get up and make my way to my quarters. Later I would eat and regain all the calories that I'd lost. However, for the time being, I was content to lay on the ground lost in the wonderful new way that I could see the universe. This was only the beginning and I knew that I was capable of learning everything that Master Jason had to teach me. So as I laid on the floor both physically and mentally exhausted there was one thought that kept me from giving into my body's needs. If this was as Master Jason put it, the beginning, and in one day my view of the universe changed, then what would I be like at he end?

And that was the first day that I'd met Master Jason.
Chapter Seven

"So out of all the masters you liked Jason the most." Katelin said, as more of a statement of clarification than anything else. She had taken to learning more about Eathen with so much enthusiasm that he was happy to tell her.

"He was the closest thing I had to a friend until now." Eathen said. As he smiled and turned to better face her they locked eyes and he became strangely aware of how close they were under the covers.

So did Katelin and they both started to blush at almost the same moment. Katelin was the first to break eye contact. "So were the other masters mean to you or were they just not as friendly?" She paused and thought about trying to relate with having teachers that she liked more than others, but decided against it. After all, even on her least favorite teachers worst day she'd never been beaten around a room for four hours.

"Well, before I started training with Master Jason they were all strictly professional, but for the most part they were always fair. They praised me for working hard and when I learned something quicker than they planned, but the never treated me like like I was an equal." Eathen paused. That had all been years ago and trying to put all the random words of the different Masters together to rebuild his opinion of them at the time took some thought. "But my training with Master Jason changed all of that. As my sight beyond sight improved, my view of everything became clearer, and I started to see some of the many truths. I was more than their equal. I even though couldn't beat them in their own arts, no one could, but eventually I could match them and our sparing matches would end in draws simply because I didn't want to show them how far I'd come."

"Because they were already bitter about how far they'd seen you come in such a short time when they had worked their whole lives to only be able to stand toe to toe with a child." Katelin added. Eathen nodded, she'd hit the nail on the head perfectly. Jealousy wasn't something that Eathen had picked up on much in his "sheltered" childhood. Katelin knew it as well as any normal teenage girl, making her the subject matter expert. "Still you shouldn't have had to deal with that as a child. I'm sorry." she said. On the one hand she did feel sorry for him, because she really thought he was too young to deal with the emotions of adults. On the other hand it was one of the more normal aspects of his life that she'd heard so far.

"Don't be." Eathen said. "The real problem came when I tried to tell them how to improve their techniques."

Katelin fought the urge to laugh but she couldn't hide the grin that was evidence enough. "You think? I'm sure they must of loved that." she said. She wasn't sure if Eathen was familiar with sarcasm until she saw him smile back at her. "I'm just kidding." she said, giving him a playful shove. At first he seemed so alien to her, but really he wasn't that strange if she looked past the crazy powers and all that.

"All of the Masters handled it differently but it was the worst with Master Chen." Eathen began. "He was the first one that I was able to beat, right after I learned the rebound technique. Although he was always the worst tempered of any of the Masters."

"Tell me about it." she said and settled in for another story. The two didn't mind each others closeness at all. Eathen blushed as her hair brushed against his face and he thought how wonderful she smelled. Katelin couldn't believe how close she was to the boy that she'd pulled out of the field the night before. It wasn't just the physical closeness that was getting to her either. She felt like he was a life long friend, someone she'd had in her life forever and that she wanted to be with forever. She pushed away the idea that he would eventually work through everything figure out how and why he was here and leave and her life would go back to how it was. None of that mattered at the moment. He was here and she would be here for him.
Chapter Eight

It must have been six months or so since I started my training under Master Jason and where as I felt that my skills had improved a great deal, not much else had changed. I still couldn't land a single strike on Master Jason. On the plus side of things I'd already proven that I was capable of using my sight beyond sight, or haven awareness as Master Jason preferred to call it, so we were done with all the blindfold exercises. Now we were working on improving my hand to hand and sword combat using the skills that came with haven awareness.

"The technique that I'm going to teach you today is the bread and butter of my own fighting style." Master Jason began. "It is the very foundation that everything else has grown from and where as I came up with it on my own, at least to the best of my knowledge, I don't believe that we have the same luxury of that much time." It was at times like these that I felt like maybe Master Jason's young appearance was just some cleverly thought up deception. It wasn't uncommon for him to sound as though he'd lived for several hundred years. Who knows, maybe he had, it wouldn't have been the strangest thing that I'd seen. Maybe it was his haven awareness which had to be several years more advanced than my own. Even I had begun to see the relativity of time on my own. "I'll teach you the first part of the technique and from there you'll be able to figure the rest out yourself."

His confidence in me was reassuring and it in turn gave me confidence. "Yes, sir." I said with a slight bow. I had become even more respectful of Master Jason since our training began. It wasn't because he asked for it, in fact more often then not he waved away my formal showing of respect as though they weren't necessary. Maybe I was directing all of my respect towards him because of how the other Masters were acting. Maybe I was looking at Master Jason like some sort of father figure. Whatever the reason, I was striving for his approval and did not want to let him down.

"The half that I'll teach you is defensive." he said. In telling me that he told me that the half of the technique he wanted me to figure out on my own was more than likely offensive. He was more than smart enough to know this and probably told me on purpose. "It is more evident in hand to hand combat so let us start with that." he said and I took my hand away from the hilt of my sword. "The principle is that I can absorb the speed and power from blocking one strike and use that speed and power from the strike to augment my own speed and power for the next block or strike. Think about how it looks in your haven awareness when you block an attack." he paused and I thought of the flash when the two forces collide. "That flash is a mixture of shockhaven and kinetic energy being released by both parties. If you align your body correctly you can use your body as a conduit for that energy and send it back at your opponent." he smiled. "I should've started teaching you this weeks ago, but I've been putting it off, hoping that you'd pick it up on your own or just not need it."

That caught me off guard completely. I'd thought Master Jason was going to teach me everything. Had I done something wrong, something to offend him maybe. Just as that thought settled in on my face Master Jason broke out in laughter.

"I was holding off for my own sake. Once you master this technique you'll be well on your way to becoming far more powerful than me." he said, reaching over and putting his hand on my shoulder. "Call it my ego if you must, but I rather like being the great Master Jason as oppose to being the student."

"I highly doubt that sir." I said politely, finding the idea a little far fetched, but still I felt relieved. I was more than relieved I was delighted that he thought me capable of actually surpassing him. Still I made no sign of anything more than the relief visible on my face.

"They say the mountain looks tallest from the bottom, and that once you start the climb it seems never ending until you're surprised that there are no steps left to take." he said, patting my shoulder. "Just remember when you're standing at the top that there are other mountains to climb." I nodded at his encouraging words of wisdom. His was not the only mountain to climb. "Now then let's begin." He stepped back and took up a staggered stance. "I'm going to throw two punches, one right after the other. Use your haven awareness to find the right point of intersection for the first punch and use the energy to block the second blow. Keep your arms and mid section loose and just guide the energy to the second punch and you should be fine. Are you ready?"

Should was never a word one wanted to hear during training. Should indicated doubt, and doubt was dangerous when it came to the idea of letting a collective of shockhaven enter one's body. Should was Master Jason's way of telling me about the danger and giving m a chance to ask any last minute questions. Should was unnecessary at this point in our training as far as I was concerned. I was more than prepared to face the danger. There was always danger in training and there always would be. "I'm ready Sir." I said with a nod.

Master Jason came forward with a simple punch. I caught it in an open palm and let the punch spin me around a quarter turn. At the same time my left hand came up and in, almost on its own and faster than I expected, and caught his right arm by the forearm pushing it to the inside. With his arm across his body and as close as we were he was open to a knee strike in the abdomen or if I pushed down against his arm I could use the force to spin myself back the other way and come with a right handed upper cut to the same area as well. Even though I thought that both options would've given me the best chance to land a strike that I'd had to date, it felt like it would've been a cheep shot at the same time. The only reason that I was in this situation with this opportunity in the first place was because Master Jason had put us here. I was to block two simple strikes and learn a new technique and that was all. I would not let my own impatience soil that victory, so I stepped back and awaited further instructions.

As though he'd read my mind Master Jason stepped back as well and said, "That was good, very good. One thing to remember is to always let the energy you take in leave your body. It is possible to absorb another's shockhaven and use that energy or store it to be used later, but that requires you to convert that energy before letting it into your body. If it's not absorbed properly the foreign shockhaven will attack the part of the body that it's confined to if it's allowed to settle." With a smile he added, "A nice touch by the way, grabbing the second punch and displacing the body like that. You could've landed an uppercut there at the end."

"That or a flying knee Sir, but I was on the defensive so I decided against it." I said, making sure that he knew that I was aware of the opening, but had chosen not to take it out of discipline.

"Yes, that you were and thank you." he said patting his stomach. "But you saw the uppercut." he added, still grinning.

"Yes sir I did." I said. In my mind I was silently defending the flying knee over the uppercut when it hit me. I was so caught up in the idea of finally landing a strike on Master Jason that I'd figured out the other half of the technique and didn't even realize it. The other half was of course the offensive part of the technique.

Master Jason saw the realization on my face and his smile widened. "So, do you feel confident enough to try to go a round at full speed?" he asked.

"Yes sir!" I said, with the excitement of trying the rebound technique in real combat. Even though I'd only practiced the technique once, just then, I understood the principle behind it well enough and could do it a thousand times over in practice with the same results I'd just had. We each took up our fighting stances. Master Jason, as always, had a more relaxed stance with his feet shoulder with apart and his arms slightly bent. My stance was more like a coiled spring. I had my right hand across my body resting on the handle of my sword and my legs were in a staggered stance, tensed and ready to explode.

"Begin." Master Jason said with a nod. I drew my sword and forced a good bit of shockhaven energy through the blade. A crescent of white glowing shockhaven went from the tip of my blade towards Master Jason. The crescents are far more difficult to block than regular shockhaven blasts. They're like a blade of shockhaven energy and are far more condensed and solid than normal blasts. How master Jason blocked this one would decide how I would proceed. Knowing this Master Jason drew a horizontal arch with two finger and cut my crescent in half. I sprang, kicking off with my left foot. His arm was going wide to the outside of his body so I would come right up the middle with a rising slash. He would be hard pressed to continue only using one hand and if he didn't that meant that he was taking this some what seriously. He blocked with his other hand and I used the force of his block to assist me in flipping over and behind him. As my feet hit the ground Master Jason mule kicked back. I blocked with my left forearm and used the force of the kick to augment the diagonal slash that I was bringing down with my sword arm. At the same time that I began the diagonal slash Master Jason rotated his foot and kicked off my forearm spinning himself around. His secondary kick gave speed and power to my slash, but was also harnessing the power from the first.

His spinning kick meant my downward slash and the sheer power was amazing. The combined power of all the strikes and blocks so far collided and I harnessed it all. Using that energy I pushed off with my sword launching myself into a back flip and landed in a crouch. Focusing that pent up energy in my sword arm and the blade of my sword I sprung off the moment that I landed. I went for a forward thrust. It wasn't surprising that Master Jason caught the blade of my sword, but I wasn't done yet. I used my continued momentum combined with the counter force that Master Jason was providing to throw a punch with my left. Master Jason caught the punch with his other hand. Using my momentum and Master Jason's opposing force again, I let go of my sword and thrust my sword hand, filled with all the pent up energy, forward in a finger jab aimed at his throat while using my shockhaven to maintain the forward force of my sword.

With my haven awareness I could see the barrier that master Jason had put up. I focused the pent up energy in the tip of my middle finger and stabbed through his shield with ease. That same power cut through the protective layer of shockhaven that Master Jason, and every other havenist, cloaked himself in as well. Then I felt the skin of his neck. I'd done it, the very thing I thought to be impossible this morning. Not only had I landed a strike but I'd managed to land what could've been a killing blow. In the split seconds that it took for all of this to register something else happened. A flash of blinding white light came with a wave of such incredible force that for a moment I was lost in the light. The light subsided as I was embedded in the far wall and I regained a sense of my surroundings.

"Are you alright?" Master Jason said. The force had obliviously come from him. His words sounded as though he was winded and he looked visibly shaken.

"Yes sir." I said, as I crawled out of the hole in the wall that I'd made. "Are you, sir?" I asked. Honestly I was fine, given the fact that I'd hit and dented the walls of the room more times than I'd like to recall. Still I'd been caught completely off guard and if it wasn't for the natural toughness of my body I would've been hurt.

"Yeah fine." he said. The confident grin that was slowly creeping its way back to his face told me that he was alright if just a little shaken. "As I'm sure you can imagine I wasn't quite ready for that." he added.

"What was that sir?" I asked. It wasn't that I'd never felt power like that before, but it had never come from Master Jason. His attacks, his whole philosophy was based on the idea of precision over power. Whatever that was, it was unfocused and wasteful in comparison to everything I'd ever seen him use, and it just didn't feel right.

"That was an old defensive spell that I'd put in place years ago that I haven't had a reason to take down until now." he said with a smile.

"A spell?" I said with a good deal of confusion in my voice. "You mean like magic?" I said almost sarcastically.

"There are forms of haven control far older and stranger than you may think." he said with the same almost grin that he always had when he was being purposely cryptic, but he was implying that he was talking about some form of magic. "However, that is for another day and for another Master to teach you." he paused, and when I went to protest he held up a hand for silence and continued. "The reason for this is simple and is not up for debate. I know little more than a beginner when it comes to spell binding and of all the forms of haven control it is by far the most dangerous, uncontrollable and unpredictable. Combine that with the depth of your shockhaven well and you'll see my point."

Reluctantly, I saw the logic in his words and had no choice but to agree with him. "I understand sir."

"Relax and cheer up." he said patting my shoulder. "You'll learn it all eventually by a much better teacher. Besides, the only reason we're having this conversation is because you nearly killed me."

"Really?" I said, quite pleased with both myself and the turn of the conversation as well.

"That blast was my last line of defense and if you wouldn't have held back you probably would've knocked a good bit of wind out of me if not crushed my wind pipe completely before getting knocked back." he paused and I didn't know what to say. The thought of actually hurting or killing Master Jason was unsettling and a little hard to process. On the one hand I liked Master Jason and would never want to do either. On the other, he was training me and the only real measure of success was me being able to. "You've picked up the rebound technique quicker than any other student I've ever tried to teach it to before. You should be proud." he said, breaking the silence.

"Thank you, I am sir." I said and then bowed.

"So am I. You're the best student I've ever had." he said and his smile turned back into his normal self confident grin and he chuckled. "I'm going to have to start training a little harder if I want to keep my title of Master."

I stood frozen for a moment caught off guard by deja vu. He'd said that those technique would make me his better before we had even began. Had he known this was going to happen somehow? Was this just a simple coincidence and was my paranoia getting the better of me? I put nothing past any of the Masters abilities, especially Master Jason. Could he have somehow been in control of the whole bout from the beginning? If so and this was more than just a coincidental choice of words then the real question was why. Without the why the rest was just useless speculation that would lead to only more speculation.

"Speaking of Masters," Master Jason began and my train of thought stopped. "You are training with Master Chen this afternoon and I would hate for you to be late or unprepared because of me. Besides I have a few more wards that I should probably remove before we continue training. I'd give you the rest of the day off in honor of your first strike, but between you and me, I doubt that Master Chen would appreciate that. So you're dismissed until then."

"Thank you sir." I said and with a bow I left for my quarters. I Cleaned myself up and changed into the more formal training uniform that Master Chen required me to wear. Master Jason was not nearly as strict about what I wore to train in since they, like the shorts and shirt I'd just changed out of, more often than not wound up torn and destroyed.

The entire time I thought about what other wonders Master Jason might have known and if I was giving him too much credit. He was the most powerful master by far and I had just struck him with a killing blow. Was it planned or had I become that much more powerful and I was just underestimating myself. I doubted it. If after a few months of training I was able to kill one of the greatest masters in the known universe then he wouldn't have held on to his title for as long as he had. I couldn't figure it out and although I was proud of myself for learning the rebound technique so quickly I couldn't bring myself to believe that the strike I'd landed hadn't been orchestrated from the beginning. So with the underlying thought that I had somehow been manipulated, I quickly set off to Master Chen's in a foul mood.
Chapter Nine

Many people would've looked at Master Chen and not thought him capable of much. Standing at barely over five foot and well into his sixty's he wasn't exactly the image of intimidation. He was fit,but not overly muscular and wore both his hair and beard, which were both white, in two long braids. Regardless of his appearance Master Chen was a Master in the art of hand weapon and hand-to-hand combat. He lived his life according to the teachings of his ancestors, the ancient Samurai, and his living quarters reflected as much. He prided himself on discipline of the body and mind and based his form of shockhaven control on Tai' Chi, one of his favorite forms of hand to hand combat. he wore his sword, a curved single edge katana, on his left side and had begun to require me to do so as well. "This is the way that swords were made to be worn." he had told me. "To do otherwise is to bring disgrace upon yourself and your blade."

As always our training would begin with the two of us spaced ten paces apart. We would then bow and attack each other until one of us was neaten. Then we would reset and begin again. The whole while Master Chen would mock my sword play, pointing out flaws where he found them. In the more recent months he had taken to insulting the changes that my training with the other masters had brought to my style and verbally abusing the other masters themselves to fill the silence that was left by my improving. There were many days that I'd spent the entire time in silence while Master Chen relentlessly assaulted me with both his sword and words. To be honest I preferred to fight in silence. Letting myself fall into the rhythm of combat was one of the few joys that I had in my life and at the time it was probably the greatest. Master Chen however, believed in harnessing the power of his emotions and he would go on long rants to increase his anger.

We both bowed to each other and the training began. In comparison to Master Jason, Master Chen was slower and far more aggressive which would allow me to work on perfecting the rebound technique. He sprang off towards me and made a move to draw his sword in a rising slash draw. Using my haven awareness I saw the path his blade would take and when it came I ducted under the slash stepping to the inside with my right foot. At the same time I drew my sword across my body, just barely clearing it from my sheath, and landed a pommel strike to his midsection.

Master Chen gave a slight grunt, changed the direction of his blade and brought it down in another diagonal slash. "That was a foolish move. To close the distance for a blunt strike." he said as I let the blow slide harmlessly off my blade. It was true that his two handed style could boast far more physical strength per strike than the all purpose single hand style that I preferred to use, but his style was so predictable that I rarely had to actually block his strikes. I instead chose to dodge them completely, or redirect them with the flat sides of my sword so that they simply went wide and hit nothing.

The next three of his attacks were all to vertical for me to do anything useful with. I deflected the first, dodged the second, and knocked the third to the far outside. Perfect. "You haven't attacked me once. I expected more." he said with a mocking tone. As he began to bring his blade back in the same horizontal slash that I'd hoped he would a thought struck me.

If I, who had been training under Master Jason for only six months, could come up with, lay and harvest the rewards of a simple trap like this on Master Chen in no time at all, then it seemed highly likely that Master Jason was capable of doing the same to me. And like everything else he did it was far more elaborate and well thought out, but to what end? What point was there in making me over confident?

Catching his horizontal slash with my blade right above the hand guard I pushed his up and over my head. Then with a simple roll of my wrist I brought my blade down and around to rest on his shoulder the blade less than an inch from his face. Had this been live combat I could've cut the exposed armpit on the way around which would've caused his shoulder to drop, leaving his neck exposed for a much cleaner beheading. I let the blade sit there for a moment until his smugness was nearly all gone. On a different day I might have been proud. After all it was no small feet to beat a master in their own art, especially with only one strike. But it felt small and as I stepped back to restart some of my disappointment must have shown on my face.

"If you kept a firmer grip on that sword like a man you wouldn't get such lucky recovery kills." Master Chen said as he took his position. I wanted to tell him that if he had half of the honor that he constantly preached of then he would accept his defeat like a man. But hurling insults was childish in my opinion so I chose to make it clear which of us was more mature through silence and skill.

He took up a stance this time with his sword already drawn. There was no bow to single the beginning of this bout just a simple nod. Almost at the exact moment I returned the nod he was back on the offensive, this time using short chops instead of full slashes. They were faster but the amount of different directions that they could come from was less then with the full slashes and after each chop he left a split second of venerability as he reset for the next chop. I could assume that it was enough that his normal opponents could see the opening and force themselves to try to move faster. I was almost positive that I could move fast enough to land a killing blow in that slit second, but in the event that he changed at the last moment and went for a thrust I would be open. So I took this opportunity to practice the defensive half of the rebound technique against another sword. It was easy enough to add a few extra twists of my wrist and shoulder to keep the energy in the blade it self and push it back towards the tip in time to block and absorb blow after blow. After the eighth chop landed but before the ninth began I let the pent up energy flow to my left hand and released it in an unfocused wave. The wave knocked Master Chen back a good ten feet and I was suddenly glad that I hadn't focused the wave into a blast, or added any of my own energy to it.

"What was that?" roared in angry Master Chen as he rolled to his feet. I said nothing and took up my stance. "No I've had enough of your disrespectful silence boy. You will answer me when I speak to you. Now, besides wasteful and weak what was that suppose to be?" he said as he continued towards me.

At this point he was less than three feet away from me. I dropped my stance. "That was the pent up energy from your failed attacks that I chose to release unfocused to avoid causing you serious harm since you were obviously unprepared for it." I said. I had no fear of Master Chen at that point. I considered myself a better swordsman and havenist already and I was done being disrespected by those that I considered to be beneath me.

"What did you just say to me?" he said, making it a point to look down on me. At the time there may have only been three or four inches between us in height so I could tell that he was trying to intimidate me.

"I said that had I wanted to I could've focused all of you wasted energy into a blast that from that range would've killed you. I said that I could've ended you and that you with all your wisdom and skill owe every continued moment of your existence to that choice." I said.

I was ready for the next string of insults, that were sure to come my way, when Master Chen closed what little distance that was left between us. However, what I wasn't ready for was the punch he threw. It hit square in the nose and I saw stars and was stunned. "That's nothing compared to what you deserve. Maybe after this lesson you'll learn some respect." he said.

My eyes were still blurry but through my haven awareness I could see that he was getting ready to throw another punch. I quickly focused a great deal of energy into a shockhaven blast far more concentrated than the one before and shot it off before he threw his punch. He was knocked back about twenty feet but he was ready for the blast this time and protected himself from the worst of the blast. My eyes cleared and Master Chen was on his feet charging me. The red anger of his shockhaven coated him and his sword in a bright red glow as he closed the distance.

"You stupid, stupid child!" he yelled, as he hacked and chopped with his glowing red sword. He was trying to channel his rage to be faster and stronger, but for all of his anger he was still just as predictable as he was before. This time however I took to discharging the built up energy along his arms and legs leaving small cuts up and down his arms and a few larger gashes on his legs. None of the cuts were large enough to cause anything more than discomfort. I didn't want to do any lasting harm to Master Chen, I just wanted him to know that he'd been beaten. instead all the cuts did was fuel his anger and push him closer to a blind rage. There was no hope of me reaching him with words at this point though and I had to think of another way to stop him without killing him. As I began running through how I might take him down with minimal damage I felt a familiar presence in my haven awareness.

"That is enough!" Master Jason yelled as the doors were still swinging open behind him. How had he known that this was happening? Was his haven awareness so attuned that he could sense this all the way from his chambers, I asked myself as he continued towards us.

"This is none of your business. I will discipline my students however I damn well please Jason." Master Chen said nearly spitting out Master Jason's name.

"From the looks of things nothing in this room appears to be very disciplined at the moment." he paused and I fought the urge to laugh. Master Chen might have thought he could teach me respect, but he knew he couldn't hold a candle to the power that Master Jason could wield and no matter how mad he got he would never openly attack Master Jason if he valued his life. "Also it would do you well to remember that he is my student as well."

"I don't care who's student he is. I will not be talked back to by some child and I will not be given orders in my own dojo by someone barely old enough to be my child." Master Chen shot back. I could barely believe it. Insulting me was one thing, but to openly insult Master Jason was another.

"If you'd like I can let the child, as you put it, get back to cutting you down to size and maybe you'll piss him off enough to stop holding back and he'll kill you." Master Jason said letting the kind understanding leave his voice entirely.

For a while nothing else was said and the two men just stood there locked in a staring match. Then out of nowhere Master Jason was the first to take a step away from Master Chen and backed down. At first I didn't understand why Master Jason would back off of a weaker opponent like that. Now I know that it was to help make things somewhat smoother so that Master Chen would stay on the Training team. But back then that move was just as much a mystery as the rest of Master Jason himself.

Master Jason turned to me and said, "Eathen return to your quarters." I wanted to argue, to tell him the truth, how I'd been able to beat Master Chen with such ease while using the rebound technique. However, when I went to speak he held up his hand to tell me not to. "Unless it is something that can't wait, you and I will speak at great lengths quite soon, but for the time being it would be best if you returned to you quarters. Now." he said with a forced calm that slipped at the end.

Quickly I realized that I was not welcome to be a part of the conversation that would undoubtedly take place after I was gone. "Yes sir." I said reluctantly, and with a slight bow I headed for the doors.
Chapter Ten

Eathen's story had taken up the rest of the day and carried on into the evening, but Katelin was too entranced by it to even notice. When the sun finally set and she had to turn on a deck lamp just so that she and Eathen could see each other she made a mental note that she was going to go ahead and skip dinner. She's eaten a late lunch and was planning on getting up early to make a big breakfast anyways. She didn't really care that Eathen was an immortal and didn't need to eat often. She knew that any body needed food to speed up the healing process regardless of its spiritual purity.

"It sounds like things tended to get pretty intense around there." Katelin said. She was still amazed, and a little horrified, that the rulers of the known universe had entrusted a child with the combined knowledge and power of the Masters. She was really amazed at how humble Eathen was despite the fact that he had been trained to be the most powerful human weapon in the galaxy.

"When you spend nearly all of your time training how to fight and kill it doesn't take much to push an argument into a physical confrontation and those can get pretty messy pretty fast. Eathen said with a smile. "But they weren't that common actually. The Masters were all adults and we all knew what could happen if we let an argument get out of hand."

"I can imagine." Katelin said. "I was wondering why you still call Master Chen Master? Is it out of respect or is it something else?" she asked.

"Well it's a title. A Master is someone who mastered immortality through their own art instead of through spiritual purity. For instance Master Jason's art is shockhaven control so in some way he found a way around spiritual purity to become an immortal. I don't know all of the details behind how each Master did it but they were all considered to be immortals with mortal spirits so they were given the title of Master." Eathen said. He knew it wasn't much of an answer but it was the one he was given and the only one he had to give her. He had asked Master Jason the same question once and been told that the world wasn't so simple that there was only one path to immortality and that immortality came in many forms.

At least he wasn't calling them all Master out of some from of one sided respect, Katelin thought to herself and then yawned. "It's late." she said eying the clock on her parents desk. "I'm going to go to bed and I'll see you in the morning okay?" she said and Eathen nodded. She got out of the bed and pulled the covers back around Eathen. "Get some rest."

It amazed Eathen how much better he felt around Katelin, and it wasn't that he just felt better than he did earlier today either. He felt happier around her than he'd ever felt before, and he wanted to tell her. "Katelin," he said before she reached to door.

"Yeah?" she said thinking that he might want a glass of water.

Eathen tried to think of the words to tell her how he felt about their time together but felt so flustered all of a sudden and couldn't think of anything that could accurately describe how he felt. So he swallowed and decided that something simple was better than nothing. "I just wanted to say thank you for everything." he paused and she walked back over to the side of the bed. "I mean it, you've been wonderful to me and it means a lot to me."

Katelin bent down to give him a hug but at the last moment something clicked and she didn't turn her head to the side. Their lips met and for a moment nothing else mattered as the heat of the moment took over. Then almost as soon as it began Katelin pulled back and the moment was over.

"Goodnight Eathen." Katelin said in a voice barely above a whisper. And with that she went off to her own room.

"Goodnight." Eathen said, still half stunned from his first kiss. He didn't really know what had just happened, he only knew that he liked it. His face felt hot, but not painfully so. He'd already put together that it was some form of human affection. Maybe Katelin knew how he felt after all he thought to him self. The thought was a comforting one as he drifted off to sleep.

Katelin walked on her tiptoes all the way back to her room, still blushing. "I can't believe I just did that." she thought to herself, as she changed into her night clothes, along with several other thoughts like. "I just met him." and "I don't even know how old he is." None of these thoughts did anything to dampen the smile that she had been wearing since she ran out of the room though. She'd kissed boys before but she wasn't thinking about those other kisses now. She knew in her heart that this kiss was different. It felt magical somehow and she too fell asleep wondering if Eathen knew how she felt and hoping that he felt the same way that she did.

\---

The sun rose early the next morning and Katelin took it as her cue to give up trying to fall back asleep and to get started making breakfast. She'd been awake since three that morning and had been fighting the urge to go check on Eathen nearly the entire time. She knew he was fine and figured that it might come off a tad bit creepy stalker like if he woke up and saw her watching him sleep. So she tried to fall back a sleep but couldn't, which she blamed on the fact that she'd slept half the afternoon away the day before. She had been looking forward to this morning, and with it the chance to spend more time with Eathen, since she'd gone to sleep. So she got up to go start cooking with a smile. Possibly the same smile she'd worn to sleep. On her way to the kitchen she poked her head in to get a quick look at Eathen. His eyes were still closed and she could tell by his breathing that he was still asleep, perfect, she thought. He'd wake up to a surprise breakfast in bed she thought as she hurried off to go get it started.

Eathen never truly slept anymore. His haven awareness had become so ingrained into his daily life that it penetrated his subconscious. The result was that he was able to rest while being able to see in every direction for about fifty feet or so. He felt it when Katelin woke up, and when she stopped in to check on him which brought a warmth to his thoughts as he stirred, waking with a smile as well. He reached to the side of the bed and caught his sword that he'd pulled to his hand with his shockhaven, pulled the covers off with his free hand and got out of bed. As he limped his way into the kitchen he had a thought that made him laugh.

Katelin turned and was about to tell him that he shouldn't be out of bed and walking around on his own, but when she saw him actually laughing she decided against it and rushed to pull out a chair for him. "What's so funny?" she asked.

"One of the Masters use to tell me that I depended too much on my sword." Eathen said as he sat down. "He would call it my crutch."

Katelin chuckled. "I'm sorry," she said lightly touching his knee. "But you're right, it is pretty funny in a sad, ironic kind of way. Speaking of crutches how is your leg doing?" she asked.

"Better." Eathen said patting his leg. "In a few more days I should be able to get around without my crutch."

"You know what else might help?" Katelin said standing back up, going back to the stove, putting the finishing touching on breakfast and serving up two plates. "A good home cooked breakfast." she said, setting both plates on the table.

Eathen went to protest but, in a very motherly way, Katelin held up her hand to cut him off before he could. "I don't want to hear how immortals don't need to eat. You're hurt, your leg is broken in two places and you insist on walking around. Eating will hep your body speed up the healing process." she paused, and her tone wound down from that of an overbearing nurse to soft and concerned as she got out the silverware and sat down next to him. "If anything it'll help me feel useful."

The food smelled delicious and more importantly it was obvious to Eathen that Katelin had put a great deal of effort into making it for him. "Thank you and you really have done a lot for me already." Eathen told her. She was far from useless in Eathen's mind and he knew if it hadn't been for her selfless kindness he might have frozen to death in that field. He gladly took a bite.

His eyes went wide in a look that Katelin thought was surprise. "If it's bad you don't have to eat it." she said, her voice sounding as if she might break down into tears. How could she have thought she could cook well enough for an immortal. He was probably use to the finest foods that the Galaxy Police Force could find so how could she think her plan old breakfast would be good enough.

Eathen reached out and grabbed her hand with both of his and swallowed. "Are you kidding, it's wonderful!" he said.

The smile on his face and the excitement in his voice almost made Katelin think that he was just being nice and trying to make her feel better. Then he practically threw her into the air as he let her hand go and dove in for another bite. "You mean it?" she began, "You really think it's good?"

Still chewing he nodded and forced himself to swallow to soon. "Yeah it's got to be the best food I've ever had. What is it?" he asked and went right back to eating.

The last bit confused her. "It's just eggs, hash browns and bacon." she said and took a bite of her own food to see what all the fuss was about. It tasted normal to her, not to say that it wasn't good, but it was as good as it always was. Had he never had eggs before, she asked herself. It surely wouldn't be the strangest thing about him if he hadn't. "You have had it before haven't you?" she asked.

"No. The only real food I've ever had were the rations they give to soldiers and that was only if I was on mission or recovering from an injury. Normally all I ever ate were those food pellets." Eathen said in between bites. Normally he had better manners, but knew that Katelin wouldn't be offended if he was too busy enjoying himself to show them.

Katelin knew about both the food pills and the rations and she didn't consider either of them to be real food. The rations had a shelf life longer than most of the animals that they were suppose to be made of and had an ingredient list that took a doctorate to read. The food pills weren't much better. They had the nutritional value needed to live but not much else. "That must have been horrible." she said. She should have known that they wouldn't have given him good food. to them he was nothing more than a tool, and it didn't matter what wonders of life he missed out on as long as he did what he was told.

"I didn't think it was too bad to be honest." Eathen said. "Is all food this good?"

It almost made Katelin sad to know that such a simple joy had been kept from him for so long, but at the same time she was glad that she could do something so simple to give him so much joy. "I tend to think I'm a pretty good cook but yeah I guess you could say that most food is just as good. It really just depends on your taste."

"Well I might just have to start eating as often as normal mortals do." he said, pausing for a moment while lost in thought. "By the way how often do you eat?" he asked.

Katelin chuckled. "Normally three times a day but it's not unusual for a person to miss a meal or to just have two." she said still smiling. Not only had she gotten him to eat but it looked as though he might do it regularly. "Can you do that?" she asked. "Just change your food intake like that I mean."

"I don't really know." Eathen said and thought for a moment. "I've never tried it before but I don't think it should be an issue." he said and then added. "If I'm not imposing that is." It was rude to presume that an offer was still open after one had turned it down.

Katelin was still smiling and waved away his concern. "Like I said before it's no big deal. I cook for myself everyday anyways so it'll be nice to hear what you think about it. I just don't want you to go all out and stuff yourself so full that you get sick."

Eathen stopped dead as he was raising another spoonful and gently set it back down on his plate eying it with caution. "You can do that?" he asked.

Katelin burst out laughing harder than she had in quite some time. When she regained her composure, at least some of it, she went about telling him more about the process of knowing if and when you've eaten enough. It was a little odd she had to admit to herself. He was so well spoken and knew of things, so many things, that she could barely have imagined before he fell into her life. Yet in spite of all that he knew, or maybe because of it, so many of the things that she considered normal and too for granted were foreign to him. Katelin decided that it just added to his boyish charm as they finished breakfast, both still smiling.

"So," said Katelin as she nearly finished herself. "Whenever you talk about the masters, you talk about them like a group. Were there other ones besides Master Chen and Master Jason?" she asked. The thought had been with her since the day before.

"I'm not sure how many other Masters there are in the rest of the galaxy, but I did learn from a few others." he said. He was already done and even though there was a little food left on his plate he wasn't sure if he was full as Katelin had said but he decided to play it safe.

"So what were the other Masters like?" Katelin asked.

With that Eathen began to tell her about Master Sam and Master Miller.
Chapter Eleven

If Master Jason was the one who taught me about the wonders of control and precision, and Master Chen taught me how to use my sword, then it was Master Miller who trained me how to harness my power. Like myself Master Miller was a Reploid. A Reploid is someone who was born with an extremely deep shockhaven well, even deeper than that of an immortal, for the purpose of powering cybernetic additions such as prosthetic limbs and a unique type of battle armor that is powered completely by the wearers shockhaven. That armor was what Master Miller was considered to be a Master of. It was obvious from the way he taught that I wasn't his first student however I was the first immortal, reploid hybrid that he had instructed. Hybrids have the combined shockhaven well depth of both immortals and Reploids and it was Master Miller's task to teach me how to reach these great depths of power.

The most notable part of Master Miller's physical appearance had to be that he had only had one flesh and blood limb, which was his left arm. His right arm and both legs were fully prosthetic all the way to his torso. He was fit and bulky compared to me and the other Masters. He looked like he was in his early fifty's he had the look of a hardened soldier who had spent the better part of his life in war. After our first few training sessions it was rare for me to see him in anything other than his Reploid armor which covered his entire body and most of his face. Every suit is custom, but they all follow the same basic design. The armor covered the wearer from head to toe in plate titanium that varied from half an inch thick to nearly two inches thick in some places. The armor was fully flexible and was integrated with strength and movement assist, but every system inside the armor needed a constant supply of shockhaven energy to function. Depending on the wearer's choice the helmet's came in fully enclosed models with an internal display, or in an open face model with digital visor of transparent armor that had all sorts of different information and targeting overlays. It also came with retractable mouth and nose guards that came out from behind where the ears would be for extra protection.

Master Miller and I both preferred to wear open face helmets and trust our eyes more than the interior display of the full face models for combat. My armor was white like my shockhaven while Master Miller's was a reactive camo that, while my haven awareness and heads up display let me see him just fine, rendered him nearly invisible to the naked eye. Even though he was a Master, he had no interest in training me in one-on-one combat. Really he had no interest in the idea of one-on-one combat at all. "Your missions will never require you to face just one enemy. You will need to control the whole battle field, not just duel across it." he had said the first time that we met.

Part of the moon base was sectioned off and practically abandon when the base lost it's tactical value several years before, and that was where Master Miller chose to train. "Your mission is this. You have been ordered to engage and eliminate a rouge terrorist group that is being lead by a reploid. We'll begin with you already inside their compound and their security already alerted that you're there. They've locked themselves inside their facilities warehouse and have taken up arms to resist capture."

The warehouse scenario was one that we went through fairly often. Master Miller would play the role of the terrorist leader, and the other terrorists would be play by his modified sentry bots. The bots were made up of a small hover generating base with a platform on top of the base for the weapon system and targeting camera. They were smaller than a person and gave a much smaller target. They were fast and capable of quick bursts of speed that were over twenty-five miles an hour. The worst part was that they were controlled by Master Miller's personal pet AI that had more data on combat formations and firing movement than I knew existed. Being integrated with the AI gave them instant communication between each other. So where as one of these bots was not difficult to deal with by its self, they were never alone for very long. The warehouse itself was a huge, three tier storage area with cris crossing catwalks on the second and third tiers. Because of all of the storage containers I would have an ample amount of cover and concealment, but then so would the bots and Master Miller. So in short it was the perfect place to set up an ambush.

"Your main objective is to take out the groups leader." Master Miller said opening the door to the warehouse. "In one minute you may begin." he said as he entered the warehouse and the door closed behind him. While I waited I did a quick systems check of my armors weapons and movement systems. On both arms I had retractable shockhaven cannons that fired a much more condensed and concentrated shockhaven blast that was more than enough to damage or destroy the sentry bots. I brought both cannons online. They split into four segments along the length of my forearm and came up and over both fists. When they weren't active they acted as additional armor. The opening at the end of each cannon would glow white when they were fully charged but they could also be fired continuously without needing to charge. I brought both arms up and on my visor two different colored cross-hairs came up. The right arm's cross-hair was red, because right and red both started with an R. The left arm's cross-hair was suppose to be lavender, because left and lavender both start with L, but to me it looked more blue so that was what I called it.

On the bottom of each boot was a port for shockhaven to travel through. They worked as jets that could turn a continuous flow of shockhaven energy into thrust. With them I could hover, fly or dash with great speed. I forced some energy through them and I started to lift off. That was good enough for me so I cut off the flow of energy and dropped back to the ground. I just wanted to make sure that they worked so there was no need to waste any energy that I didn't need to. It wasn't as though the ports wasted energy, but it was no small feat to lift three quarters of a ton of person and armor off of the ground. I touched the tip of my right hand cannon to the handle of my sword for reassurance that it was there, and with that my checks were done and my minute was up.

I kicked open the door and ran in with both arms up and ready to fire. One of the main differences between the sentry bots and humans was that the bots never got tired of watching the same unmoving door and lose focus. Even though it had only been a minute, I knew that the moment that I came through that door the bots would open fire. I knew that my armor could take plenty of hits before anything would penetrate it, however it was never pleasant to get hit with live rounds. That was another thing that Master Miller was very clear on ever since we first started training. He didn't believe in using training rounds, so instead, each round that was shot carried the potential for death. The second that I cleared the door frame I went to the right. Three rounds went through the door just as I cleared it. I had no idea how many sentry bots Master Miller had at his disposal, since he'd conveniently failed to mention that during his quick brief. I jumped and using the booster ports in my boots went to the second and then to the third tier. Until I found Master Miller my main mission was to cover as much area as possible, which meant that I needed to keep moving and avoid getting cornered. Being on the top tier lowered the different directions that I could get shot at from substantially. As long as I stayed to the perimeter, kept the wall on one side and kept moving, I could thin out some of the bots before finding Master Miller. Once I found him I'd engage him in close quarters. even though he was one of the most powerful Reploids in the galaxy, close quarters combat was not his specialty. The only problem was that while I was fighting one of the most powerful beings in the known universe I would also have to try to keep from getting shot by an unknown number of sentry bots. It wasn't a great plan, but it was the best one that I had come up with since Master Miller had closed the door behind him.

I'd have to be fast, I thought to myself as I landed on the third tier. I abandoned the idea of running in my armor and relied on my boosters to keep ahead of the bots. There were three already behind me and I saw at least two more shadowing me on the catwalk to my left. They were trying to cut me off, surround me and gun me down without ever exposing their leader, who they knew was my real target. It was a sound tactic, but it would fail. I was coming to the corner of the room which was going to limit my exposure to two directions. As I passed the last catwalk intersection before the corner the three bots behind me opened fire. I was doing my best to weave back and forth on the catwalk to make sure I wasn't an easy target, but the catwalk wasn't too wide and it wouldn't take long for one of the bots to get a lucky shot off. I spun around and used my shockhaven to put up a wedged shaped barrier. Two rounds impacted into the wall beside me and one veered off to the right and into a storage container. All three shots were aimed for my back and not meant to do anything more than push me into the corner for their ambush. I raised both arms and returned fire with three shots of my own, two from the right and one from the left. The first two blasts hit the closest two bots and they exploded in a shower of debris that caused the third one to crash. I stopped and shot another blast at the fallen one that was still mostly intact. I turned back to the corner with both arms up. As I did the two bots that were shadowing me came into view from behind the storage container. Two more shots made quick work of them and for the moment I was alone. I used the moment of peace to extend my haven awareness outward as far as I could manage. It almost covered the whole room, but over such a large area I couldn't make out small details like the bots that weren't moving. Luckily I didn't need to. A reploid as powerful as Master Miller shown like a star in my haven awareness, and I found the general area he was hiding in. He was in the back of the room, towards the center, on the second tier.

Good, I thought to myself, I had a location and I was going in the right direction. With that I took off and rounded the corner. No sooner had I made it around the corner did I have to throw up a hasty barrier to block the fire of six sentry bots that were hovering right behind the storage container. I swore under my breath. The AI was getting smarter. A trap inside of a trap was the sort of thing that I had grown to expect from Master Jason and something that I had tried to emulate in my own technique. It shouldn't have caught me so off guard, but I was to busy finding Master Miller to clear the corner and it was sloppy enough to cost a lesser man his life. It was hard to pinpoint the separations between the volleys and then it hit me. They should've been shooting as one to try to overwhelm my defenses. Not that it would work, but it was the best chance that they had to actually hit me. Unless that wasn't their goal at all. They were trying to pin me down while another element came around on my exposed side. A third level of the trap made of a classic flanking maneuver. I didn't have anymore time to waste and I needed to move. Six bots shooting in intervals may not have been too much for me to deflect, but twelve or even twenty-four might be. They were staggering their shots to keep my barrier up and me from shooting back. I reached out with my shockhaven, took hold of the six and pulled them all to a center-point. They crashed together in a heap and the shooting stopped. I fired two shots into the heap and it was gone. I didn't bother standing around and continued down the catwalk. I was halfway to the back of the room when two more bots came up from the lower tier. I used the same center-point pull technique on them and blasted their tangled remains to nothingness before they could fall. I flipped off the third tier, kicked off of a storage container and landed on a catwalk on the second tier. I extended my haven awareness and realized that I was closing in on Master Miller. I retracted my right arm cannon and stretched my fingers. Fighting Master Miller with my arm cannons would get me nowhere, I said to myself as I continued to close the distance between us. I took a turn at the last catwalk before the back corner and saw him standing in the middle of a intersection.

I pumped even more shockhaven into my boot's boosters and dashed towards him. He raised his hands in an exaggerated clap. His raw power rivaled my own, and from either side a storage container came tumbling down from the top of the stacks. I reached up with my right hand, caught both containers with my shockhaven and shuddered and dropped down to one knee under the weight. The containers that I was holding over my head were thirty feet long and had a combined weight ten tons.

Then from either side of the catwalk came twenty bots. I was in the place that I really didn't want to be. I was surrounded and even trapped in from above by the containers that I was holding up. I had to act. I let go of the container on the left and threw the one on the right at the intersection, and Master Miller, and jumped. I jumped to the right, out of the way of the falling container and got behind the one I threw and used it for cover. Master Miller was more than powerful enough to catch one container. Knowing this I pushed with both my shockhaven and my free hand. Even with as powerful as he was, he couldn't hope to over power, gravity and the kinetic energy that it already had, but he still tried. I smiled as I saw through my haven awareness that five of the sentry bots had been smash by the container and that three more had crashed trying to avoid it.

Then the container lurched in my control and its speed was cut in half. Master Miller wanted to have a power struggle, but this wasn't just between the two of us. If I stayed the course and tried to prove that I was stronger I would wind up with a shooting squads worth of sentry bots on my back and be in no better of a position than I was in when I started. I abandoned my cover and flipped on top of the container and drew my sword. Shifting the angle of the booster ports on my boots I spun like a tornado and slashed through four more bots before any of them could take aim and get a shot off. The container had nearly stopped when I reached the other side and Master Miller let it fall. I jumped clear of the intersection and the bots continued to move in to try and surround me.

Master Miller had already drawn his weapon. Normally he was more of a gun man, but he knew that if I got in close he couldn't do much of anything with his guns to defend himself. The weapon he drew was a morning star that acted like the haven scepter that Master Jason used to train my haven awareness. The amount of power that he could channel through that weapon would've made me hesitate had I not been able to send all of it back at him with the rebound technique. As I closed the distance I took two shots at the two bots that had taken position behind Master Miller and flipped into their place. He spun around with a horizontal swing. It was at his shoulder height which made it easy enough for me to duck underneath. I came up with my left arm cannon and blasted him from point blank in the chest. It was too close for him to try and deflect anything and he was knocked back a good ten feet. I through up a bubble shaped barrier around myself as Master Miller was thrown back. Now that there was no chance that the bots surrounding me could hit Master Miller the didn't hesitate to open fire. I expanded the bubble out and knocked the closest bots back, off balance and sent two of them crashing into the containers.

Master Miller didn't waste any time getting to his feet, and he used the booster ports in his own boots to hover. He flipped his shoulder mounted rail gun into its firing position. I reached out with my right hand opened and with my shockhaven. Controlling the mental battle field was just as important as the physical one. Master Miller hesitated, thinking that I was going to somehow turn his attack against him. I closed my fist and pulled it back. Master Miller flinched at the motion, and I could see in my haven awareness that he flared up thinking he needed to defend himself. Then he realized that there wasn't much I could do from behind the barrier, so as he relaxed and took aim, I pulled with my shockhaven. The container that he'd dropped after I threw it at him lurched forward, smashed into his back and drove him even closer to me. I dropped my barrier completely and took off on a collision course at top speed and drew my sword. I buried it into the container up to the hand-guard right between his rail gun and his head.

"Index?" I asked, in an even tone. The fight was obviously over and he had lost. The only reason that the sword was buried in the container and not in his helmet was that I had no intention of killing him, and we both knew it.

"Index." Master Miller said, with a nod, and I withdrew my sword from the container I stepped back from him and he stopped hovering. I looked around and took in the vast amount of damage. There were pieces of the modified sentry bots everywhere. One of the containers that Master Miller tried to drop on me, the one that I just let fall, was somehow still intact, even though it had fallen all the way to the ground level. On its way down it took out about a twenty-five foot section of the railing on the second tier. The other container was still intact, short of the small stab hole I'd put in it. However, the whole intersection was a mess. The catwalk itself was sagging, but was stable, but the railings were mostly on the ground other than a few pieces that were hanging on by a stubborn bolt that just didn't want to let go.

"You did well." Master Miller began. My eyes settled back on him and I prepared for him to point out any and all of the flaws that he'd seen. I didn't ever let it gt to me, cause I knew he only did it to help me get better. When we'd first met he'd told me that we strive for perfection and the only way to reach it is to practice until you're free from flaws, but if we don't see the flaws then we'll repeat them. Assumption is the enemy of perfection. "But, you need to remember to clear your corners." he said.

I nodded, knowing that was my first mistake. "Yes Sir, I was careless and acted with too much haste." I said. It was no good to have your flaws pointed out if you weren't going to take responsibility for them.

"Being fast is no good if your just going to trip over your own feet." he said. "Remember, slow is smooth and smooth is fast." he added. I nodded, but didn't say anything. there wasn't much I could say, other than that I understood, which he knew I did. "Other than that little mishap, you did quite well. You reacted and adapted to the battle field around you. You used the things in your environment to your advantages and turned your enemy's attacks into your own defense and offense as you saw fit. Even with that little mishap you were never actually hit" he said with a smile. His praise was completely unexpected and my confusion must have shown on my face because he started to laugh. "You're getting better each and every day and I'd like to take credit for that. I'd like to say that it's all because of my great training and all that nonsense, but..." he paused for a moment. "But you're good and it's got half as much to do with my training as it does with who you are. There were over forty bots in this room, but the path you took you made sure to avoid most of them. I made sure to stage them ahead of time so that you couldn't cheat and find them with your haven awareness. You're beginning to think more and more tactility each time you go into combat and weather it's subconscious or not is unimportant. As a hybrid you have enough power to do great things, but what will give you the ability to do those things is your mind. Your mind will be what lets you conquer foes that have more power and speed past those that are faster. You are destined for greatness in battle Eathen and you will win with your brilliant mind." he said.

"Thank you Sir." I said, with a bow. I knew that any praise from Master Miler was well earned.

"Don't jump to thank me too quickly," he began with a smile. "You've still got quite the mess to clean up before you go." he said, gesturing to the general destruction and state of dismay that the room was in. "Don't bother wasting your time on the little bits of the sentry bots." he continued. "They'll get recycled, just get the containers back in place and straighten out the railings as best you can."

The task of reconstructing the torn up parts of the warehouse was daunting and I was sure that it was showing on my face. "Yes Sir." I said with a bow, that was more to hide my disappointment.

"Next time we'll give the bots automatic rifles and after you get some fly time, you'll be ready for a real mission in no time." he said, heading off towards the door. "Besides," he began, calling over his shoulder. "Think of it as a little extra exercise. I'm not foolish enough to think that you have to work as hard to beat me as you did a few months ago." he said, as he turned a corner and was out of sight.

I didn't bother trying to argue against that point. I was in the training phase which meant that with each day that passed I was getting more and more skilled and powerful. The Masters however, had plateaued and at some point I was going to catch up to them. Still he was right. Putting the room back in order was good exercise and I spent the rest of the day putting back together the room that we had destroyed.
Chapter Twelve

Master Samantha was a master spell binder plain and simple. She looked like she was in her early thirty's or late twenty's, but like everything else her appearance was under the influence of her shockhaven. I had to admit that she was beautiful, but the fact the her beauty was manufactured made it impossible for me to appreciate it. I didn't understand why someone would use their skills for something so vain. Once I had worked up the nerve to ask her about it and what she actually looked like.

"You're a man, or at least one day you will, so I wouldn't expect you to understand yet." she said, and gave me a smile that was a wicked grin that held the bitterness of untold years. "But you are an immortal. In a hundred years time when your youth is withered and gone and you stand in the face of immortality without eternal youth and you hold the power to change this you might understand."

She was cryptic and liked to speak in hypotheticals. She always found ways to dance around a conversation so that she could give answers without any certainty and there were times that I thought of her as less of a teacher and more of a riddle laden sounding board.

"The term 'spell binding' gives most people the impression that it's some form of magic or cosmic wizardry that allows us to impose our will upon the universe. The truth is far less mystic." she said with a voice that was heavy with loss. For all her beauty at times she seemed like the saddest and most jaded woman in the universe, filled with the disappointment of the knowledge that her twisted form of immortality brought her.

Oh she was an immortal, but not in the traditional sense. Most normal immortals simply age slowly and can regenerate cell loss from the power of their spiritual purity. In a sense once they reach a certain age they simply stop aging on their own. Master Sam however was not a normal immortal and she didn't have spiritual purity. She hated the way of the universe and I suspected with as detached as she was that she had seen, and possibly even taken part in, many acts of evil. At the time I wondered how such a dark individual could make herself at home with such a noble organization like the GPF. Now I know that she was perfectly at home with them.

"The truth is that its nothing more than another form of shockhaven control." she said. "The difference is that with spell binding you're giving your shockhaven a command and your shockhaven acts on it's own as oppose to controlling it out right." My confusion must have shown. She sighed heavily and I found it hard to believe that someone with so many years could be so impatient. "I suppose you would prefer a more practical demonstration." she said and with a roll of her fingers a glass orb appeared in her palm.

"Yes ma'am, that would help." I said with a nod.

"I know you're only trying to be respectful, but please..." she began, and then made long uncomfortable eye contact. "Don't call me ma'am or miss. It makes me feel old." I paused uncomfortably not knowing what to say or what to call her. "If you feel the need to call me something then my name will do just fine." she said, and turned her gaze back to the glass orb. "Now how would you make this levitate?" she asked.

"I would surround it with my shockhaven and lift it." I said confidently. Levitating and moving things with my shockhaven was one of the first things I'd learned to do.

"Yes you would. Go ahead." she said and held out the orb in the palm of he flat hand.

I reached out and gently took the ball from her hand with my shockhaven and let it float in the air between us. From the moment I took it in my shockhaven it started to shine bright white with the color of my shockhaven.

"Now, remove all thought and concentration and keep the orb in the air." she said and the ends of her lips curled up into a grin.

I thought hard about what she was asking me to do but I kept coming to the same conclusion. It wasn't possible. Some level of thought was needed to keep control of the ball and no matter how small there had to be some level of concentration to control my shockhaven. "I can't." I finally said.

Her slight grin curled up even more. "And that's the point." she said, and grabbed the orb out of the air. "At least that is the reason it would be practical for you to learn the art of haven spell binding."

I thought back to the first strike I'd landed on Master Jason and it made sense. "In the heat of battle I could maintain my full focus while my shockhaven acted on its own." I said.

"That would be a practical application for you. However it is unwise to let anything with a direct connection to your shockhaven completely leave your mind." she said.

"In case the strain of maintaining the spell becomes to much for your shockhaven to bare." I interjected as I began to understand. She was right too, as again I thought back to the landing that strike on Master Jason. Where as his spell had done a good job at protecting him it drained a good bit of his shockhaven and I still managed to recover from the spell before he did. In a battle to the death that spell would've only delayed what it prevented. Still that might have been enough if he had just been caught off guard.

"But don't worry there are ways to protect yourself against such problems." she said, pleased that I was catching on.

"You mean that when you bind your shockhaven you can set limits on the amount of shockhaven that the spell can draw directly from your shockhaven well." I said thinking of the most obvious way. "Or you could cast another binding to counter act the first." I added trying to think of more than one way.

She smiled. "Limits are difficult to properly explain and impose as orders to your shockhaven, since there's no standard unit of measurement for shockhaven energy. Counter binds will draw on even more shockhaven and unless you bind the counter spell in a way that will only drain shockhaven from the original binding then you'll wind up draining yourself dry while the two spells fight each other to follow your orders." she said, shooting both of my ideas down. "Try again."

I tried to think of ways to sever the connection of the bind, but nothing came to mind. At least not anything that didn't take more concentration than conventional haven control. I needed to narrow down some of the more abstract ideas and get a better idea of the direction she was trying to guide me in. "Could you restrict the binding to a certain portion of your shockhaven from the beginning." I asked.

"That's possible." she said.

I was on the right track so I continued down that train of thought. "If you could, then could you sever the connection to that portion during the binding or even before to avoid the binding from reaching into the rest of your haven well?" I asked, although it was less of a question than statement of understanding. Master Sam nodded in approval so I continued. "So really you could form a haven orb and instead of giving the order of the binding to your whole shockhaven you could give the order to just that orb."

"That is the easiest way to do it for bindings that you plan on using immediately but as you know shockhaven that is separated from the body will naturally begin to dissipate as time progresses." she said.

"So for bindings that you want to have an extended life expectancy, like last line defensive spells, you would have to rely on a direct connection to your shockhaven." I said as more of a statement than a question.

She raised an eyebrow in a look that said she clearly wasn't expecting my response. Unlike all of the other Masters, Master Sam loved to show her emotions. She'd show her expression and then gauge how well I could read her by my reaction. Or so I thought. It was entirely possible that I was being overly analytical and she was just making a game of it. Still it was helpful in my understanding of human interaction.

"I was recently on the receiving end of one of Master Jason's defensive spells and saw the tole that it took on him physically." I told her and she gave me a hesitant nod. "We were working on a new technique and he wasn't expecting me to activate the spell." I added. I had seen how Master Chen had reacted when he thought Master Jason had over stepped his bounds as far as teaching me and I didn't want to cause him any problems with Master Sam.

"I was going to ask if you've had any experience with any of the other masters and haven binding, but I suppose the more fitting question would be if you've had anymore experiences with spell binding." she said evenly.

Evenly was never good, but it wasn't bad in and of its self. Evenly meant that she was in between emotions and my response would tip the scales one way or the other. "No that was the only time I ever encountered spell binding. Master Jason simply told me that it was a defensive spell and that it was not his place, nor did he feel comfortable, teaching me an art that he hadn't mastered himself." I said.

"A wise choice on his part." she paused, and I assumed that I had avoided the worst of it. "You just seem to be a little more knowledgeable about the subject than a first time spell binding student." she said giving me a narrowed eyed stare.

"Where as this may be my first class in the art of spell binding, I have been a student of many other forms of shockhaven control for quite some time. Also I've known of the existence of haven spell binding since that incident with Master Jason which has allowed me ample time to think about the subject on my own, but I assure you that you are my first and only teacher in the art." I said. I was glad that all of this was getting out of the way in the beginning in stead of later on.

"Good. You're not completely ignorant, but you're also not caught out on bad habits from others. It's far easier for me to teach a new student and for you to learn new things without me having to argue with the teachings of someone else. Now pay close attention." she said, as she held out the ball.

I opened my haven awareness and focused on the details in front of me, happy to have moved on.

"Levitate." she said. Normally someone's voice causes waves in my haven awareness, but when Master Sam spoke the wave was less noticeable and there was something else there. A dark black tendril of energy snaked its was down her arm and into the glass orb. It was just slow enough for me to be able to see it at a blur but still considerably fast. She moved her hand from underneath the orb and it stayed there suspended in the air giving of the same dark black glow that the tendril of energy had.

As the orb hovered there she turned her attention back to me. "You must speak directly to your shockhaven, and the order must be clear. Don't try to over complicate it. With as deep as your shockhaven well is I doubt that there's any danger in this small task. Last and most important, to end a spell simply," she said as she placed her hand under the glowing orb, "order your shockhaven to stop." With stop the orb dropped to her waiting hand. "Are you ready to give it a try?" she asked handing the ball to me.

This didn't make sense at all. If all I had to do was tell a spell to stop then where was the danger that I'd heard so much about. Secondly Master Sam had been speaking to me not her shockhaven when the Orb dropped so she hadn't given it an order at all. Whatever she was trying to do I was not going to be fooled or made a fool of. I focused on my shockhaven as a whole and spoke to it just as though it was a person. "Levitate until I order you to stop." The words felt just a little bit heavier as I felt the flow of my shockhaven going into the orb. I let my hand fall from under the orb almost expecting it to fall as well and shatter on the stone floor, but it didn't. It hung there with the brilliant white glow of my shockhaven. I could feel the drain if I tried but it was so insignificant that it was only a fraction of the speed that my shockhaven regenerated at so it really didn't matter.

"Congratulations." Master Sam said, with a grin that looked almost as disappointed as pleased. "You've passed you first test, which means you're not a fool or a completely mindless idiot."

"You just told me that counter commands would drain your shockhaven and kill you. Did you really think I was going to test it. Which, by the way, what would you have done if I had just followed your lead and done what you said?" I asked. I couldn't help but be upset with her for that.

"If you had failed the test then I would have told you before the beginning of your second test for the day and it would have just been another handicap that you would have to keep in mind for the second test. Just like in life when you make mistakes they hinder you in the future." she said and she placed her hand on the orb.

To her credit there was never any danger until I would've tried to drop the orb. Still That did not mean that I appreciated her attempt to trick me in the slightest. "And just what would this second test be." I asked, making my attitude known.

She almost laughed leaning on the orb that still wouldn't budge. "Let me tell you a little story and we'll see if you can guess." she said, with another wicked grin. "There once was a game or really more of a contest. It was a type of battle to the death for spell binders. In this game they would take a glass orb just like this one and use it to see who was the most powerful. The rules of the game were simple in the beginning. The challenger would make the orb levitate like you are now and the person being challenged would make the orb fall. The winner is decided when the weaker of the two's shockhaven is completely drained."

All of my attitude was gone and replaced by horror when I felt the drain on my shockhaven increase almost to the point that it was draining faster than it regenerated. She couldn't possibly think that she could over power me could she? Regardless of the fact that she was a Master, the depth of my shockhaven well dwarfed her own, and in a test of power she was sure to lose.

"But, you see spell binding attracts the most clever of havenists and only a fool would risk his life to play by the rules." she said, as the strain continued to increase. "Gravity manipulation was the most common for of cheating in the beginning."

The strain had begun to drain my shockhaven well quicker than it could fill itself, but it still wasn't bothersome yet. I could intervene, but I didn't want to start going back and forth with someone who had done this for many times longer than I'd been alive. "And I'm sure that the ability to cast silently helps in all of this trickery." I said. Even if she was using some other way to try to make the orb fall it still had to be costing her some shockhaven and the difference between the depth of our haven wells was enough that I didn't have to follow her act of dishonesty. "Ma'am what is the point of all this?" I said slightly upset that she felt the need to do this the first time I tried haven spell binding. Upset or not she was a Master of her art and I was a student so I tried to not judge her technique against my other teachers.

"I told you before not to call me ma'am." she said, and the strain jumped dramatically. "As I was saying, the nature of the challenge changed. It was not only a battle of power but it had become a game of skill and intelligence as well."

If she wanted to test my intelligence along with my power that was more than fine with me. "Vacuum." I whispered thinking of the orb and the area around it. It wouldn't matter how much she messed with the gravity around the orb if I centered a vacuum on it.

"Clever." she said, as the drain on my shockhaven nearly ceased. "Mastering the art of silent casting increases the challenge of the game."

She nodded and the drain on my shockhaven returned. As much as she tried to hide it I could see through her calm demeanor and could tell that this test was also proving to be a strain on her shockhaven as well. If I was going to beat her I needed to out think her. She'd bypassed the ideas of gravity faster than I'd expected. If this was simply a contest of power then there would be no contest, but she was more experienced in the trickery of this game then I was. Then an idea came to me in a flash and I'd already opened up my haven awareness before it was finished. In my haven awareness I focused on the orb and where it was in the three dimensional plane and said, "Stay," then quickly focused on the area around the orb and said "Resist."

The drain on my shockhaven was immediate and more than I'd expected. It was too fast for it to have been Master Sam reacting and I felt like a fool. "Annihilate!" I shouted at the orb and it vanished from existence. The problem that I couldn't believe that I missed was that I tried to hold the orb in place as well as the room around it but that would mean that tearing the moon apart since the moon and really everything in the universe is constantly in motion.

"I believe that we'll call that a drawl." Master Sam said. Her smile was a little shaken but still somehow present. "You did well."

Besides the part where I almost killed all of us, destroyed the moon or just took it out of orbit is what I wanted to say. "Thank you." I said instead.

"As you can tell the possibilities for what can be done with the art of spell binding are practically limitless." she said.

That was an understatement. There were limitless possibilities but they came with a price. Spell binding was the most dangerous form of shockhaven control that I'd come across yet. I would have to try out every spell before using it in live combat. Still Master Sam had just taught me a skill that I was already finding uses for. "The conscience that is imprinted on your shockhaven when you give it a command is a version of your own correct?" I asked trying to make sure that I was understanding things clearly.

"Who's else would it be?" she said answering me with a question.

"Fair point." I said with a smile and a nod. "So then it would be safe to assume that your shockhaven would have the same knowledge as you."

"It's never safe to assume, but until proven otherwise it would seem logical that it would. Your point?" she said.

I smiled but bit my tongue instead of pointing out that her statement was in it self a contradiction. "My point is that if you gave your shockhaven a complex command that bound it in a physical form resembling your own you could expect it to behave as you would?" I asked.

The way that her eyes widened along with her smile told me that I was on to something. "Yes you could." she said and then paused like she was thinking something over to herself. "It's called haven cloning and although there are many different varieties of it they are all some of the most advanced forms of spell binding you'll ever find."

Even though it had all just started as speculation on my part the fact that it had a name meant that someone had already done it. I had no doubt that it was beyond what I was comfortable and capable of doing now, but I could work towards it and eventually become as skilled in the art of spell binding as I was with my sword.

"That's enough for today as far as I'm concerned." Master Sam said. "You have plenty to think over tonight and tomorrow we'll work on some more advanced things but for now your draw won you some rest."

I didn't protest or argue. If I was going to try to continue spell binding I would prefer to do it without felling as though my shockhaven well was more than half drained. I returned to my room and continued to think about the different possibilities of spell binding.
Chapter Thirteen

Katelin and Eathen sat and talked for most of the morning and it was almost noon before Katelin politely excused herself to tend to the equipment outside. Eathen sat quietly thinking for ten minutes or so before he stood up and began to wash the dishes from breakfast. The fact that he moved with super human speed and used his shockhaven to gather all the dishes and get them to the sink got the job done in less than five minutes. Normally he didn't abuse his skills for simple chores, but he didn't want to drop and break anything limping back and forth. The little that he did know about food was that it was easier to clean off the sooner you got to it.

He knew that Katelin would make a fuss over him being up, but he really didn't mind. In fact he thought it was nice for a complete stranger, or at least that was what she was before she became the most important person in his life, to show such concern for him. Not for his mission or his potential, but for him. It was the least he could do to clean the dishes that she'd used to make him breakfast, he thought.

Katelin didn't take long checking up on the equipment. All she really had to do was recheck the schedules to make sure that none of he machines were going to run into each other and check each piece of machinery that had been out the day before to make sure it was fueled and nothing was wrong with it. As usual everything was fine just as she was nearly certain it would be. With that don she made her way back inside just in time to see Eathen hobbling back to his seat at the table. She thought about giving him a scolding and telling him how his leg was never going to heal right if he insisted on walking around. Then she saw the drying dishes, clean table top and shining counter tops. "You really didn't have to do all this." she said.

Eathen smiled. "You didn't have to wake up early to make me the best meal of my life either but you did."

She didn't care how flattering all of this was. "That not the point." she said as her hands instinctively went to her hips. "MY leg isn't broken. Yours however,"

"Is doing much better thanks to your wonderful cooking." Eathen cut in. "Really it is. Remember that I so heal a lot faster than normal people. I'll be fine really." he said trying to assure her.

"When I found you I could've bent your leg into a square. I could feel the break and see the bruising less than two nights ago." she said dropping to a knee and gently pulling up his pants leg.

"Really I'm fine." Eathen began.

"Hush." Katelin said running her hand up his shin feeling for the break. She knew where it should've been but she couldn't feel it and the bruise was gone. She didn't bother asking for permission to continue up his leg feeling for the break on his thigh.

Eathen was still not use to the touch of another person and normally would've flinched when someone made quick unexpected contact with him. However, he felt a calm around Katelin that he'd never known before and was still. Her hands were soft and he didn't mind the warmth of her touch. "See it's almost completely healed." he said. "It's just a little sore and tender that's all."

"Well let me just check your reflexes and I'll stop bugging you about it." she said. She stood up, pulled her chair over to the counter-top and stood on top of it. Then she started feeling around blindly on a shelf that she could barely reach even with the chair. "Eathen can you use you haven control and push a coffee mug with a bunch of different sticks in it?"

With as in depth as his haven awareness was he already knew which one she was talking about but he decided to play a little joke on her since she insisted on telling him what he could and couldn't do. Instead of moving it the few inches to her hand he pulled it through a gap that he created in the three dimensional plane and into his hand. "You mean this one?" he said holding up the mug.

"You know I can't see which one you're..." Katelin said, letting her sentence trail off as she turned around. "How did you do that?" she asked, as she stepped off the chair completely confused. She knew the mug was up on the shelf like it always was but Eathen hadn't moved.

Eathen just smiled and when Katelin reached for the mug he made it disappear and the reappear in his other hand. "Another thing that Master Jason taught me." he said finally handing her the mug.

"That must come in handy." she said and pulled out a small reflex hammer from the random assortment of things in the mug. "Put your fist under your knee." she said. It was still sometimes hard for her to believe that she'd been out of school for over a year with the way that she automatically went into nurse mode. She checked both legs and realized that he was right and it was nearly healed. She put the mallet back in the mug. "Could you umm." she said, and nodded to the cupboard where it came from. Eathen smiled and the mug disappeared and reappeared back in the cabinet. "That really is cool."

"It does have its advantages." he said. "Why do you keep stuff up there if you can't reach it anyways?" he asked.

Katelin's smile slowly faded and was replaced by a somber look that made Eathen wonder what it was that he said. "I didn't always live alone you know. My dad was the one that use to get that mug down for me and my mom. I just never bothered to find it a new place for anything really after they died I guess."

"I'm sorry." Eathen said. He had assumed that her parents had passed given that he had seen plenty of her family pictures in what he figured was her parents old room. She wasn't much older than him so it came to reason that she was living on her own because she had no one left to live with. Knowing this he felt he should've given more thought to not bringing it up so carelessly.

Her smile came back. "It's fine. My dad wasn't much taller than me so he still had to get on the chair. I'm glad that I have good memories of them. I'm sorry that you never got to know you parents." she said, placing a consoling hand on his shoulder.

He couldn't believe how caring she was. Even when dealing with her own pain she was worried about him. "What happened to them, your parents I mean." Eathen asked.

Katelin told him about her mothers death here on the farm and how it had driven her to medical school and then went on to tell him how her father had been killed being mistaken as a terrorist. Eathen didn't want to tell Katelin that he thought she was lied to about her father. Bifoil wasn't known for having any anti-government movements what so ever, and he was nearly positive that the GPF had just made up the part where her father had been mistaken for a terrorist to cover up their own misdeeds. But he didn't want to confuse her and cause her any more distress over her fathers death.

They sat for a moment in silence before Katelin broke it by changing the subject completely. "So what happened with Master Chen?" she asked.

Eathen didn't fight the change but embraced it. "He changed the way he taught me. And we stopped sparing completely." Eathen said.

It wasn't that Katelin minded talking to Eathen about her parents, but she'd always found it easier not to dwell on the pain of the past. Plus Eathen didn't seem to mind talking about his training and she liked hearing about it. "It's good that you two didn't keep fighting all the time. So I'll get started on cooking lunch while you tell me about that and how you learned to teleport things." she said.
Chapter Fourteen

Master Jason and I were standing in the middle of the training room as usual. What was unusual was the two small tables that seemed to crowd the normally empty room. One of the tables was bare while the other was covered in an assortment of random small objects that seemed to have nothing more in Common with each other then the fact that they could be found around someones home.

"Do you remember our first day of training?" Master Jason asked. I nodded but didn't say anything. "The training scepter and the blindfold had to come from somewhere don't you think?"

I hadn't given that much thought to be honest, but he was right. Only gods had the power to defy the laws of physics and create matter from nothing, and even though Master was powerful he was no god.

"That is what I'm going to teach you today. The art of moving matter from one point to another through a gap in the three dimensional plane is known as summoning. It is done by using your shockhaven to open a portal in the three dimensional plane that leads to the absence of space and then another that leads from that absence of space to the point on the three dimensional plane that you want to summon the object to. The absence of space is known as the void and you have to surround whatever object you're summoning with your shockhaven or else it'll be pulled apart by the pull of the void. Now when these two portals are open at the same time it creates a bridge through the void that lets you object appear nearly anywhere from nearly anywhere in a fraction of a second." Master Jason said.

It was a lot to take in all at once. "So if I'm not mistaken you're not only telling me that the act of teleporting is possible, but that you can accomplish said act with nothing more than clever shockhaven control." I said trying to make sure that he and I were on the same page.

Master Jason smiled. "That is correct." he said. The cool calculated way hat he chose his words and spoke was taking root in my own speech. "I know that it seems a little difficult and vague but when you see it in your shockhaven awareness You'll have a much better understanding of the whole process. So I suggest that we begin with a demonstration for you too observe if you're ready." he said and he and I turned to the two tables.

Somehow I didn't need to tell him that I was ready and had opened my shockhaven awareness. He already knew. His awareness dwarfed mine in comparison even though my own awareness was continuing to improve every day.

I saw his shockhaven in my awareness, or rather I felt it. It was too small to actually be seen. It was just a point, a single point in the vast three dimensional plane of the universe. Then, in a fraction of a second, the shockhaven seemed to shrink almost disappearing completely. Then it expanded in a dark mass consuming the small cube that was on the crowded table and then both the cube and the dark mass surrounding it vanished from the crowded table and reappeared on the empty one.

I couldn't believe that I had made sense of what I had just seen so easily. Now I knew the how and the steps of how it happened, but there was still something beautiful about actually seeing it. The implications that it brought to mind were endless.

"Are you ready to try it for yourself, or do you think you might need another demonstration." Master Jason asked.

Was I ready? It wasn't as though the art of summoning was particularly dangerous. In fact, in comparison to spell binding or reploid armor control, summoning it was perfectly safe. However just because I felt confident that I wasn't going to kill myself, Master Jason or the both of us didn't mean that I was confident that I could actually do it successfully. "Yes sir I think I'm ready to give it a try on my own." I replied after a moment. I didn't want to appear over eager or hesitant. I still didn't know the extent of Master Jason's powers and controlling my reaction was a calculated way to keep the full extent of my cognitive abilities to myself.

"Good then you can start by moving the cube back to where it was." he said in an even tone. I always wondered if he was at all like me, if his mind was always thinking, always working and always calculating another move. The thought that someone else with his power thought like me left me even more paranoid over his true motives.

However dwelling on things that I couldn't find the answer to wouldn't help me and I needed to focus so I forced the thought out of my mind and tried to focus on the task at hand. Starting at the corner of the cube I focused my shockhaven to a point. In math a point on a graph represents the smallest possible that can exist on a graph. In the real world it's no different and when you shrink down that point you're touching the the void. From that point at the corner of the cube I tore into the void and at nearly the same time I tore another hole to exit the void on the crowded table where it was before Master Jason summoned it from. The cube was a simple geometric shape and with its smooth shape there was little reason for error making it almost impossible to fail. The cube passed through the void easily and it proved that I had a good understanding of the principles of summoning. I was relieved that I had such a good understanding of the art. However this was only the beginning. The cube was the easiest object on the table to summon so moving it from one table to another meant that I had a basic understanding of the art, nothing more.

"You did well." Master Jason said. "Although I knew you wouldn't have a problem with it. You have the making to be a powerful master havenist some day."

I took the compliment in stride. I was already considered by some to be a master swordsman and both Master Jason and I knew that it was only a matter of time before he had taught me everything he knew and I surpassed him as well. However, until I reached that point I thought that it was best to remain as humble as I could. So I nodded politely.

"There are three different levels of summoning." Master Jason said continuing the lesson. "The first level is known as basic summoning or just summoning. It is the simple act of moving one still object through the void like you just did. The second level is called high summoning, and it varies little from the first level. The difference is that a high summoner can summon objects in motion. Summoning an object in motion takes a great deal more concentration, calculation and shockhaven control. The third level is called grand summoning, and with grand summoning you can summon living beings through the void."

So I was learning the first level of summoning. And then a thought came to me and I had to ask. "In theory could a grand summoner summon himself through the void could he not?"

A smile appeared on Master Jason's face. "Yes he could. It's called portal warping since calling it summoning seems foolish."

That was true since summoning meant bringing something to one's self so you couldn't bring yourself to yourself.

"Summoning living beings through the void requires special focus. The pull void is rather unforgiving to the flesh." Master Jason added.

"I can imagine that it is unpleasant to be pulled apart and crushed at the same time." I said knowing what happens to the human body when it's in a vacuum in space.

Master Jason gestured with a wave back to the tables. "But, before we go jumping into the unknown let's make sure that you've mastered the basics." he began, getting back to the lesson at hand. "Focus on the different shapes of the objects and their contour lines. At your own pace you may begin moving the objects to the other table." he said and stepped back.

"Yes sir." I said. Starting with the cube I began to move the objects one by one to the other table. All of the objects were fairly small and after training with similar objects to prefect my shockhaven control I was use to dealing with the intricate details that the objects had. All of the objects made it to the other table completely intact including the hairs that were on the hairbrush.

Master Jason looked over the random assortment of items and nodded. "Good. Although o be honest I didn't expect you to do anything short of perfect on this task. Still you should be proud that you can deliver on expectations of perfection." he said. His confidence and understanding of my abilities was surprising but well placed and I nodded in acceptance. "Now we can move on to more practical applications." he added.

I felt more than confident enough to move forward. "Such as what exactly?" I asked.

Master Jason smiled. "Almost always you're going to be summoning something outside of the rang of your haven awareness." he said bringing up a good point. "So then the question becomes how do you summon something from outside of your haven awareness?" he asked.

Obviously he was waiting on me to come up with the with the solution on my own, which meant that I already had the information but just needed to connect the implied dots. "given that you don't have to be at the center of you haven awareness, then it would be safe to say hat you don't have to be in that particular area of your haven awareness so long as you know the space that your summoning from and its distance from you in relative space you could project your haven awareness there." I said. It was the only way that I could think of to summon from outside of my immediate area, but it did make sense as far as actually being able to work.

"That is correct." Master Jason said with a nod. "Most summoners keep a box or a room filled with things that they might need to summon. It helps you keep down weight when you go on a mission and let's you adapt to various situations as your mission changes. Also summoning is the way that most Reploids don their armor which allows them to wait until they arrive at a battle before putting the extra strain on their shockhaven that wearing armor causes." This was wonderful and it meant that I didn't have to spend the better part of two hours putting on my armor. "But before we get ahead of ourselves why don't you try to summon something from your room." He said bring me back to the task.

"Yes sir." I said with a nod. I tried to extend my haven awareness all the way to my room but it was out my range to directly reach from the training room we were in as I'm sure that Master Jason had known before giving me the task. Still I had to try. So I closed in my haven awareness around me so that it was only a few feet around me and then In my mind I pictured the area between the training room and my room. Then I let that space fall out of my focus leaving only my room and the area around me in my haven awareness. Successfully being able to see my room from where I was boosted my confidence and I knew that I was more than capable of doing this. I focused on the box at the foot of my bed where I kept the majority of my training equipment. In the bottom of that box was the blindfold that Master Jason had summoned and given to me on the first day of our training. In a way it felt fitting that it would be the first thing I would truly summon myself.

I reached out with my open hand and the folded length of faded black cloth fell into my palm.

Master Jason laughed. "I would've thought you'd have gotten rid of that thing by now. We've been beyond blindfolds for quite some time now." he said still smiling.

"It didn't take up that much room and I would've hated to get rid of it and need it again later." I said.

"I suppose that I just take some things for granted." Master Jason said in a tone that made me wonder if Master Sam was the only one that had preserved their youthful appearance. Master Jason always had struck me as being much older than he looked, but he didn't have the same bewitched glow in my haven awareness that she did. So I took his words as a sign of his wisdom instead of his age.

"That is human nature I suppose." I said to break the silence.

"That it is. Be sure to take some of that philosophical view with you when you go to train with Master Chen this afternoon." he said with a smile that said he knew something that I did not.

I had been dreading going back to train with Master Chen since I had found out that he wasn't leaving the training team. That afternoon was going to be the first time that Master Chen and I had seen each other since our argument had gotten out of control and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. "I will sir." I said hesitantly.

"Good." Master Jason began. "And above all else try to keep an open mind. Who knows, you might actually wind up liking class with Master Chen and looking forward to it in the future."

I highly doubted that I would ever look forward to spending time with Master Chen but I didn't want to say that right after he told me to keep an open mind. So I just nodded.

"I think that we've made a fare bit of progress in the art of summoning today. Why don't you take the rest of the morning off. And make sure that you're on time for your training with Master Chen." he said.

"I will sir. Have a good day." I said as I left.
Chapter Fifteen

Following both Master Jason's advice and my own curious nature I arrived persisly at the prescribed time to Master Chen's training room. Arriving early was just as bad as being late in Master Chen's eyes. "A strike made too early can be just as ineffective as a strike too late." he had said in the earlier days of our training. Given the nature of our last encounter I didn't want to start off on the wrong foot, plus I was looking forward to just getting this awkward encounter out of the way.

I opened the door to Master Chen's training room and looked to the normal spot where we would normally begin sparing, but he wasn't there. Instead I found him sitting cross legged on the floor at a traditional table that looked more like a stool, having what looked like tea. He had more than one cup which made me almost think that he may have forgotten about our training.

As though he read my mind he motioned to the other side of the table and said. "Have a seat Eathen." His voice was calm and even.

The was no confusion that he was talking to me. The confusion came from him using my name and from him speaking to me before outright attacking me. That and the fact that he wanted to apparently have a discussion over tea. It was all odd but not unwelcome by any means. Maybe this was what Master Jason Meant by keeping a open mind. With a silent nod I took a seat.

There was an uncomfortable silence while Master Chen gathered himself and composed his opening statement. "It has come to my attention that you've grown to powerful for me to train in the traditional ways of the sword."

I had to bite my tongue. When had it come to his attention before or after I nearly cut him to shreds and bled him dry, I wanted to ask, but didn't.

"However, just because you've managed to combine your average skills in multiple arts does not make you a Master swordsman. Nor does it mean that I have nothing less to teach you. It simply means that I must take a different route to ensure that not only can you wield your blade as a Master of the art but that you understand the art of combat as well." he said, as he poured two cups of tea.

He passed one to me and took a drink of his own. "Thank you sir." I said, trying to be polite and took a sip. It was bitter but good.

"If you are to be the inheritor of all of my skills you will need the knowledge that goes along with it. There's a great deal of knowledge that you don't know that will make you both a better swordsman and a better person so pay attention." he said.

"I will sir." I said nervously. Master Chen and I Never did much talking. It was like we were meeting for the first time However, this time around he was treating me with respect and I was having trouble finding the normal dislike that had usually come so easily.

He nodded in approval and took another sip before beginning what was going to be today's lesson. "So let us begin at the most basic understanding of combat." he said, pausing for effect and I nodded. "How many different directions can an attack come from?" he asked.

"Infinite." I said almost immediately after he asked the question.

I could tell by the subtle change in his expression that I hadn't made the connection that he wanted me to. He took a deep breath, "Maybe I'm asking the question wrong." he paused and thought. "If you are facing an enemy stand in front of you how many different directions can his attack come from?" he asked.

I was so taken back by the fact that he had just openly admitted to being wrong that I barely heard the question. It was like I was talking to a completely different person. I put that train of thought out of my head and focused on the question. Better not test the limits of his new found patients. I knew that the answer was meant to be broad and probably cover both bladed and unarmed combat, but for the life of me I couldn't figure it out. So instead of wasting time I tried to be humble as well. "I don't know sir." I said, with a hint of frustration. He was right. Even if he couldn't beat me in combat there was no question as to which one of us was the Master.

"You do know, but you don't know that you know and that is the point." he said, continuing to nurse his tea. "Nine. There are nine basic directions that an attack can come from." he said, pointing to the emblem on the chest of his robe. It was an eight pointed star but I didn't see the connection. He pointed to the top point of the star. "There's the downward vertical." he said and ran his finger to the bottom point. "And there's the rising vertical." he said tracing his finger back to the top. He moved his finger to the point to the left. "Then there's the downward left to right diagonal." he said as he traced his finger to the bottom right point. "And the rising right to left." He continued naming off the types of attacks and tracing the lines of the star on his robe. He covered both horizontal strikes and the two remaining diagonal strikes as well, which put him at eight of the nine strikes. He brought his finger to rest at the center of the star where all the lines intersected. "And this is the ninth." he said tapping his finger on the center point. "Do you know what this is, or rather what it represents?" he asked, still tapping.

I thought about all of the other points and the attacks that they represented. They were all slashes, having a start point and an end point. However, the center point had no obvious beginning or end point, which meant that it couldn't be a slash. Leaving only one obvious answer. "It represents the thrust sir." I said proudly.

"Yes it is. This," he said, placing his hand over the star. "Is more than just an emblem. The eight pointed star of destruction rests at the heart and soul of each and every single form of combat ever created. Without an understanding of the star you would have no chance of mastering any from of combat."

It made perfect sense, but by learning the rebound technique I managed to not learn anything about the eight pointed star until now. Even though I was able to stand in opposition to a Master of the art, it was only because of my combined training not because of my mastery, or lack there of, of any art. Suddenly I felt a flood of empathy for the old master. For so long I just thought he was bitter because I was overtaking him. In reality he was frustrated because I was beating him in his own art without even the most basic understanding of the art in his eyes.

I took another sip of my tea. "So with an understanding of the eight pointed star one could choose the best counter to an attack." I said.

He smiled after taking another sip. "Choosing a counter depends on if you want to redirect the strike or stop it outright. Stopping a strike outright is an easy application of opposing force from the opposite point on the star of destruction. However, even though there are many benefits of stopping the motion of your opponent, in many cases it is of greater benefit to redirect a strike with a glancing blow." he said.

Over the next few hours Master Chen shared all of the basic ways in which to best redirect both armed and unarmed strikes. Somewhere along the way the lecture turned into a conversation and I started to give my opinion on how and why I would do certain things differently. Master Chen didn't argue or tell me I was wrong but would entertain each option I made and would play out the hypothetical battle and move on. The one thing that stuck out the most was that he was not only respecting my opinion but talking to me like an equal.

Finally after two hours of talk about combat, both armed and unarmed, Master Chen picked up his tea trey and I was dismissed. Oddly enough I was looking forward to coming back and I couldn't help but wonder if Master Jason really could see the future.
Chapter Sixteen

Master Miller had said that he'd wanted to run me through a training scenario with fully automatic weapons. What he hadn't said was that he was going to be the one with the big guns. Surprise.

Master Miller stood before me in what I could only hope and assume was his complete Reploid armor. On his right shoulder he still had the rail gun that could send a tungsten shell the size of a soda can at five times the speed of sound in almost any direction without him having to move. On his left shoulder he had a chain gun that looked like it belonged on a space ship given that the bullets were nearly half a foot long. Then for close range combat he had two highly customized sub machine guns. Each of them where shortened to the point of being less than a foot long with high capacity magazines and they both had interfaces that gave him targeting cross hairs on his heads up display.

It wasn't that any of my other training was safe but the fact that Master Miller didn't believe in using training rounds made the idea of him actually shooting at me one of the most frightening days of training so far. It wasn't that I couldn't block the chain gun, or the sub machine guns, with my shockhaven, but the rail gun was a different story. With the speed that the shell moved I would be lucky if I could react quick enough to even put up a haven barrier, but I didn't know if I could do more than redirect the shell at that speed and using spell binding to stop the round might drain my shockhaven well dry. Master Miller had told me once that he actually preferred energy based weapons but that they just weren't effective enough against shockhaven users. "Energy weapons are great, Unfortunately, they're too easy to send back at whoever shot 'em. I've got enough ammo that I don't care if you block the solid shells just so long as you don't send 'em back at me." He was right of course. The easiest way to block energy weapons is to make a reflective surface with your shockhaven and redirect the energy bolt. If you were to add another reflection and do the math to get the angles right you could send the energy bolts right back at whoever shot them with great accuracy. Of course if you weren't fighting a havenist energy weapons had a slew of benefits. Energy bolts penetrated conventional armor better than their solid shell counterparts. They didn't have actual ammunition but charge packs that were much lighter and in most cases could be converted to being charged with an individuals shockhaven. The weapons themselves were almost always lighter, given that they didn't have as many, if any, moving parts.

Master Miller and I were in an open room that was easily fifteen hundred feet long and across, and probably a hundred feet tall. I had no idea what the room was used for and it was completely empty save for Master Miller and myself. As I stood there, in the armor that I'd thought overly bulky the first time I'd worn it, I couldn't help but feel a little under prepared and over exposed in the face of such armament.

"Your task for the day is simple." Master Miller began. "I'll be playing the role of your enemy, and I'll be at that end of the room." he said, pointing to the far wall. "You'll be over there on the other side. When I yell go, you'll engage and eliminate your target. The whole point of this training is for you to learn what it's like to get shot at by automatic weapons. Plus I like the smell of gun powder." he said and smiled. I knew he was going to enjoy getting to use me as a live practice target for all of his guns far more than I was going to enjoy getting shot at but that didn't mean that I wanted to see him smiling about it. "You got any questions?"

This was probably one of the most simple training scenarios I'd ever had, so of course I didn't have any questions, but that didn't mean that I wanted to rush into getting shot at. "No sir." I said.

"Good." he said and nodded. "Get on over there and we'll get started." he added and with that he used the same boosters that I had in my boots to take off towards his side of the room. With as heavy and bulky as he looked with all of his weapons, he moved with a grace and speed that said that he was obviously use to the load of his armor.

Even though he wasn't slow, my armor was much lighter and I was much faster than Master Miller. I got to my position and turned around in time to see him still hovering towards his own. With his back to the wall the idea of getting behind him gone. I was going to have to come at him from the front and there was no getting around that. The sub machine gun was more of an annoyance than a real danger. The chain gun rounds I'd have to deflect from the top half of my body at a minimum, but if I could avoid getting beat up by the impacts at all I'd prefer it. The real problem was that damn rail gun. Even a glancing blow would be the end of training, so my best chance was to keep my movement up and trying not to get shot all together. Not much of a plan, but it was all I had and it'd have to do.

"You ready down there?" Master Miller yelled, as he set down at his wall.

There was really nothing I could say that might change the outcome of this and he knew it. He was just taking the time to set up and get a good aim. "Yes sir." I yelled back still hovering ready to move.

"Go!" he yelled. His yell was drowned out by the sound of the chain gun.

I went right and spoke to my shockhaven. "Deflect rounds from my face, until ordered to stop." It was a vague binding, but I wasn't planning on using the spell as my primary defense At the same time that I spoke to my shockhaven I put up a traditional sphere barrier over my head. The rounded angle of the sphere would help to deflect the rounds instead of trying to completely stop them outright, and I hoped that it would help take less shockhaven energy that way.

The rounds impacted in the wall where I'd been standing moments before. Master Miller's aim was dead on. The first few rounds were at chest height and then they started disperse more as he tried to follow me. I pumped more shockhaven to the ports in my boots and took flight up, forward and to my right, Master Millers left. The rounds were still whizzing past my left side, about a foot away and were getting closer. Then right before they got on target they stopped and I felt the rail gun charging up in my haven awareness. I Kicked out my right leg to the side and sent more power than I ever had to the port in that boot. As a result I went flying across the room faster than I'd thought possible. The rail gun fired but I was no where near where Master Miller was aiming and struggled to regain control as the round impacted into the wall behind me.

Dodging that shot had given me an idea. I'd never tried to see how fast I could move using the boosters in my boots. So far in my training I'd only used them to skate on the air to help me move just a little faster. However, I could use them like rocket boots and fly parallel to the ground, giving Master Miller a smaller target and getting me to him much faster.

As I made the choice and leaned forward while sending more shockhaven to the ports, Master Miller's chain gun began sending rounds a little to far to the right. I shot up, forward and fought to gain control of my flight. It was difficult to fly without any type of wing or fin stabilizer system and it was going to take more time to get adjusted to this type of movement than I had to spare. even though I was going much faster, I was going in a straight line and it didn't take Master Miller long to zero in on me and open up with his chain gun, hammering my right flank. The only way I had to steer was by tilting my feet to change the direction of the ports on the bottom of my boots. So I angled my boots so that I cut down and to the right. I dipped farther down than I expected and almost hit the floor, but not only was I starting to get the hang of this kind of flying, I was closing in on Master Miller as well. I brought my feet under me and stopped sending as much shockhaven to the ports in my boots, so that I was more or less standing upright, while still moving forward with the momentum from my burst forward.

At the same time Master Miller raised both his sub machine guns and opened fire. The bullets may have been small but he emptied the two 75 round clips in less than three seconds. Alone the impact from one round would have been barely noticeable, but together they hit me like a wall of lead. Then the rail gun powered up and I realized that the machine guns had done exactly what they were meant to do. Each of the rounds had chipped away at my forward momentum and now I was hovering at standstill maybe thirty feet from Master Miller. I pumped more shockhaven into my boots and shot straight up. I pointed both of my arm cannons down at Master Miller and fired. My cannons couldn't hope to fire faster than his machine guns but they carried more than enough power to blast through whatever he shot from his machine guns and hopefully could cause knock one of the rail guns rounds of course enough to miss. Not only that, but I hoped that they might inspire Master Miller to move so that I could avoid finding out in case I was wrong.

Master Miller dodged to the left and moved out to the center of the room trying to get a better angle. Now that he was away from that wall and moving I needed to keep him that way and use my speed to my advantage. I pulled the right arm cannon back so that I could use my hand, as I circled above Master Miller and summoned my sword. The rush of power that I felt when I connect to the sword with my shockhaven reassured my plan. I came in low from his left side, the side that the chain gun was on, and almost immediately the chain-gun opened fire. Given that I was only a hundred feet or so away Master miller was on target and the rounds bounced off of my barrier bubble. I could feel the barrier pulling more and more shockhaven energy with each impact, but the drain wasn't much and since I was accelerating instead of coasting the impacts did nothing to slow me down.

I closed the distance to less than thirty-five feet and Master miller began to turn while raising both his sub machine guns. I pumped even more shockhaven to the ports in my boots, so much so that I heard a loud pop that I later realized was me breaking the sound barrier. At the same time I tilted my boots so that I started to corkscrew. I flew past him under his arms looking up at him and slashed with my sword. I was going so fast that I couldn't actually see much more than a blur, but I felt four points of resistance, but my sword went through all four with relative ease. I cut off the shockhaven to my boots, flipped 180 so that my momentum was carrying me feet first, and then used my boosters to come to a stop.

"Should I continue?" I asked, looking back at him to see what all I had cut.

Master Miller looked at the four tips of his weapons that were on the ground, then back at me. "You know, I could just summon another weapon." he said. It was a fare point given that I was a good twenty-five feet away from him.

I was still holding my sword and wondering if I could close the distance between us before he could summon another weapon and take aim with it. "You could. Then again I could take disarming you to a more literal level the next time." I said, pausing before respectfully adding. "Sir."

We were at a stand still and it was completely up to Master Miller if he wanted to continue or not. "You could." he began as he dropped the two useless halves of what were his sub machine guns to the floor. He shrugged his shoulders, one, then the other and what was left of both of his shoulder weapons fell to the floor as well. "What do you know about rockets and grenade launchers?" he asked.

I looked at him for a moment wondering if he might try to summon one to teach me more about them. It would've been a mistake. I wouldn't try to kill one of the Masters or even seriously hurt them, but I wasn't above cutting off one or more of his prosthetic limbs. "Other than they're the worst possible weapon to use against a havenist I don't know much sir." I said still griping my sword.

"And why is that?" Master Miller asked.

"Well they detonate when they hit a solid object so it would stand to reason that a smart havenist would blow them up with a barrier in the shooter's face." I said.

"I suppose you would, wouldn't you?" he asked and I nodded in agreement. "Then I suppose we can call it quits. There's no point in letting you ruin any more of my guns." he said and I sent away my sword.

"How dense would you say that your weapons are?" I asked.

He looked down at the small pile of ruined guns. "In comparison to what?" he asked.

"To reploid armor." I said. "Compared to reploid armor, how strong are the weapons I just cut through?" I asked.

"Ah." He smiled and nodded. "With as cleanly as you cut through these, you could get through two plates of standard reploid armor. However, the shockhaven shielding and the shockhaven that flows through the armor it self, would've absorbed a lot of power from the strike." he said and I nodded. "But to answer your question they're about half as dense and a third as thick.

It was no easy slash and although I hadn't put much shockhaven or strength behind it, I was moving at the speed of sound. Still the fact remained that I could slash through the strongest parts of a Reploids armor without even using my full power. It reminded me that even though I felt invincible in my armor I wasn't, and if I could do it without even using my full power, then it was more than possible that someone else could as well.

Master Miller sent the broken pieces of his weapons off and then brought the conversation back to the original objective of the day's training. "So you did a good job of taking action while under automatic heavy fire. Even knowing that you can block the rounds, it still takes guts to rush into oncoming fire and not even flinch, and you did just that. You handled yourself like a pro just like I knew you would. Other wise I wouldn't have used live rounds."

"Thank you for your confidence sir." I said with a bow.

"You've come a long way in a short time. You're more comfortable and capable in your armor then most Reploids who have lived in theirs for their whole lives. You still have a lot to learn and given enough time I'm sure you'll master it all. For now though I think you're ready for flight training." he said.

"Flight training sir?" I asked.

"Well before you can accomplish your mission, whatever it may be, you have to be able to get there. So after tomorrow morning you'll be able add pilot to your list of skills." he said with a smile. "So go get some rest, cause tomorrow we're starting early and we'll keep going till you get it down."

With a bow I left and as I did I had a feeling that I didn't fully understand what all was going to happen the next day.
Chapter Seventeen

The next morning I met Master Miller in one of the lunar base's hangers and there were only two crafts in the whole hanger. Either they were worried that I'd wreck the whole place or they just didn't use this particular hanger, which wouldn't have been surprising given how far out of the way the hanger was.

The two crafts were nothing alike other than the fact that they were both single occupant fighters. One, that I could only assume was Master Miller's, was covered with weapons. It had twin forward mounted chain guns that were a lot like the one on his armor only twice as big. There were huge missile pods in front, behind and even underneath the cockpit. It seemed odd that a havenist as skilled as Master Miller would need to use anything other than his shockhaven to take out incoming missiles, so I assumed that they were all for offense. To top it all off he had two rail guns, one above and one beneath the cockpit, that could pivot to any angle to give the craft a full 360 coverage.

The other craft was a smaller 't' style body that got its name from that fact that from above it looked like a lower case t. The body was only about four feet wide without the wings and it tapered to a point at the front, but it was nearly twenty feet long. The wings, that came out at a 90 degrees, were about seven feet long each. As far as armaments went it had a rail gun that ran the length of the craft on top and twin energy cannons underneath. The cockpit opened from underneath the craft which was odd for a fighter craft but not unheard of. It seemed a little under armed in comparison to the other craft, but it looked a lot faster. The more I looked at the craft it self the more I saw what looked like the booster ports on the bottom of my reploid armor boots. There were two on either wing tip, and one on each side of the steep four sided pyramid that made up their nose of the craft.

"Master Jason said you would like it." Master Miller began. He stepped out of the shadows and with his reactive camouflage he was nearly invisible in the low lighting. Still I was a little angry with myself for not using my training and being caught off guard, when all I had to do was open my haven awareness and scan the room. Instead I had acted like a kid seeing his new toy and not even thinking. However, I kept all of these thoughts to myself since I didn't want Master Miller to see.

"I don't really know what all I'm looking at to be completely honest." I said. Other than the weaponry I didn't know much about space crafts in general.

"Well, it's fast and nimble. it's probably got more maneuverability than any other fighter ever made." he replied. "Fighters like yours and mine are a special type of craft that are powered in the same way that your reploid armor is. Everything from weapons to propulsion is powered by your shockhaven." Master Miller said, as he walked up to the craft that was suppose to be mine. "It's a little under armed for my taste, but the firepower that it does have is more than enough to cripple a cruiser in one shot."

That sounded like what Master Jason would recommend. Move fast and attack with well placed power. The more I looked at the machine the more I started to like it. "How does it work?" I asked.

Master Miller pulled a handle on the underbelly of the craft. The air lock hissed as the pressure was released, and the pilots seat folded down from the craft. It was more like a sports bike chassis than a chair. To fly it you would have to straddle the chassis and lay down on it to reach both, the foot peddles at the back, and the handle bars in the front.

"It's simple enough." Master Miller began. "Down there on the right you've got your throttle for your forward thrust." he said pointing to the right foot peddle. "The left is your counter thrust. It also deploys your drag fins, but unless your in atmosphere they're almost pointless." His explanation wasn't really wasn't the answer I was looking for, but it was still knowledge that I needed if I was going to fly this. So I didn't interrupt and took it all in. "These." he said, pointing to the handles in front. "These control you maneuver thruster. You've got thruster ports in the front, middle, and back sections on both the top and bottom of the craft. The handles rest on the middle middle thrusters push them forward for the front thrusters and pull them back for the rear thrusters. If you twist the handles back engage the bottom thrusters, and twisting them forward engages your top thrusters. You don't need to use the thrusters for turning or simple steering the chassis is set up on a free floating system that lets you simply lean in the direction that you want to go." he said.

"What about the weapon systems?" I asked. At this point Master Miller had me more interested in the what than the how.

"Well, you've got two buttons on the inside of the handles by your thumb notches. The top buttons are for the beam cannons, and you have to hit both of the bottom buttons to fire the rail gun." He paused. "Any questions?"

I paused for a moment. I wanted Master Miller to think that I'd just come up with the question, not that I was just standing here half listening. "Dose the whole craft run solely on shockhaven energy? What about all of the digital information, like the targeting systems and radio coms equipment?" I asked.

"It works just like you armor does. To run all of the electronics your armor has a small conversion unit built into the base of your neck that converts shockhaven energy into electricity. The craft has a much larger, much more complex, haven conversion chamber. The craft will pull the shockhaven energy from you to do whatever you tell it to do. Then that energy goes into the conversion chamber that will then turn it into a usable form of energy for that task. For normal flight it's less of a drain on your shockhaven to fly with thermal powered thrusters. So your shockhaven energy would be converted into flame and focused for basic rocket propulsion. The problem with that is that now you have a heat signature. There's a switch up in front of the chassis that says stealth. Flip it on and you'll run cold. As for how the conversion chamber actually works, how it turns shockhaven into electricity and fire, is far more complicated. The base for the conversion chamber are what they call elemental stones and they convert shockhaven energy to whatever element the stone converts it to." he said. "Anything else?" he asked.

I thought for a moment and figured that he didn't know much about the stones and how they were made. "Nothing that I can't figure out through trial and error." I said, somewhat excited to get in and give flying a chance.

"Good. Then get in and let's get started." he said, as he walked off towards his own craft.

I had thought it would be difficult getting into position on the chassis in my reploid armor, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I slid one leg over the pilots seat and flipped the switch to close the cockpit. The seat rose back into the belly of the craft and took me with with it practically forming to my armor. The opening closed with a hiss and I was alone in the darkness with no idea of what to do. I was still close enough that I could open a coms channel to Master Miller with just my reploid armor alone.

"Master Miller, this might be obvious but the craft has no windows or interior lighting. Am I suppose to use haven awareness or am I missing something?" I called over the coms channel.

I was checking the coms channel and was about to call again, but then I heard a hiss and felt the chassis start to open back up. "You're missing something." he said, holding a fully enclosed reploid helmet that matched my armor. "The ship has cameras that run directly into an interface through your display. Also the helmet has a seal of it's own and can recycle your air supply for days in the event of pressure leak, a seal rupture or a crash." he said handing me the solid white helmet.

With a quick bit of summoning I was wearing the enclosed helmet and the other one was in my quarters. As the helmet powered on I was relieved to see something besides the darkness that was the inside of the helmet. The helmet made me feel slightly claustrophobic but if it was necessary to be able to pilot then I knew I had to get past it, so I put it as far out of my mind as I could.

"Let's try this again. Follow my lead out of the hanger and we'll go from there." Master Miller said and walked over to his own craft.

I flipped the switch to close the cockpit and when the air lock latched my helmet view changed. It was as though I was laying on top of the ship it self. If I looked to the left or right my view would change as though I was actually looking left or right from on top of the ship it self with my own eyes.

"Coms test." Master Miller caller over the newly established coms channel. "You reading me over there?"

I turned my head and saw Master Millers ship hovering to my left slowly easing his way to the door of the hanger. "Yes Sir, loud and clear sir." I said. I wasn't quite sure how the coms would work ship to ship, or if they'd be any different then the coms in my armor. An open coms channel was really just a glorified phone call. As long as it was open he could hear anything I said and vise-versa.

"Good give yourself enough under belly thrust to get off the floor and then give it a little gas and follow me out of the hanger." Master Miller called over the coms channel.

"Yes sir." I called back. Gently I turned the handles back and started to lift off the ground. As I started to inch off the ground I gave the throttle a little push and started to move forward as well.

"Alright now just remember to lean to turn." Master Miller said, coaching me alone.

"Yes sir." I said, leaning to the left. The chassis was a lot easier moving than I thought it would be and I almost over shot the hanger doors, but I corrected with a quick shift to the right that was so subtle that I doubted Master Miller noticed.

"Take-offs and landings are the hardest parts of flying." Master Miller called over the open coms channel. His ship was hovering just outside the hanger. I let off of the forward thrust and started to hover beside him. "Well, don't just sit there. Go get use to your ships controls and how it handles. Just mess around until you get the hang of it." he said, as he saw me slowing down.

"Yes sir!" I said with enthusiasm. I gave a quick look around to make sure that I was clear of the hanger and any obstructions. With the coast clear I cranked both handles back, leaned back in the chassis and pushed the accelerator as far as it would go. I shot up and forward faster than I'd ever moved in my relatively short life. It was terrifying and exciting at the same time. When I made it a good bit away from the base I eased off the throttle and decided to try out some tricks. With the handles in their neutral position I twisted them in opposite directions. It sent me into a pretty intense spin. I twisted the handles back, just past their resting position, and the spin stopped dead.

"Sharp." Master Miller called over the coms channel, that was still open and working fine from a good distance. "But any decent pilot can do a barrel roll. Don't be afraid of pushing the craft too far. It's built to handle maneuvers that would tear any other ship in half." he said.

"Good to know sir." I replied as I came around for another pass. I pushed both handles forward and gave them a twist back. I did a back flip, nose over tail, and I shot back in the direction that I'd come from, upside down. With the same way that I did the barrel roll I rolled right side up.

"Keep at it. When you're ready we're both loaded with paint rounds so we can get you some dog fighting practice in." Master Miller called.

I did a couple more flips and rolls to let Master Miller know that I was ready to move on to combat training and I honestly thought that I was. the way that the display integrated to my helmet I was beginning to think of the ship, my ship, as an extension of my own body. With one last flip I came to a quick stop and started to hover. "I'm ready to go whenever you are sir." I called over the coms.

"That's funny, I thought it was my job to decide if and when you're ready or not." Master Miller called back. "But if you're in a that much of a hurry to make a fool of yourself I'll gladly give you some assistance."

I realized that I'd over stepped my bounds as a student and now Master Miller was going to go all out and put me back in my place. "My apologies Sir. I meant no disrespect." I may have been more than his equal in hand to hand combat, but this wasn't hand to hand and I was under no illusions. This was literally my first time flying and he was a Master.

"Neither did I. Sometimes it's just fun to mess with you." he said to my relief "But you do learn better from combat. So, let's give it a go. We'll start off with something simple." he said and his ship turned towards me. "Tag!" he called as he shot off a quick burst from one of his chain guns. "You're it."

The paint rounds exploded in a mass of caution yellow blobs on the haven shielding that I didn't even know that the ship was drawing on my shockhaven to producing. So this is a game now is it, I thought to myself. He was already off, flying in a series of zigzags I could already see that this was going to be difficult. I flicked the safety covers off of the triggers and a stationary cross-hair showed up on my heads up display along with a charge gauge for the rail gun. All three of my weapons were fixed in place, which meant that my whole ship had to be angled just right if I wanted to hit anything, as oppose to all of Master Miller's.

With all of this in mind I shot off after Master Miller. Even with his head start it was apparent that my ship was much faster than Master Miller's and I caught up to him in no time. Lining up the shot however, was even harder than I expected. Even though he was going relatively straight, he still made it a point to move just enough to force me to continually adjust my aim. That alone showed his skill as a pilot. I had to give him enough lead not to under shoot, but to much and I'd over shoot.

I could see a puff from one of his side booster ports. I fired with my aim just off to the right it hoping would give me enough of a lead for the round to find it's target. The recoil was nonexistent, but the crack form the paint round breaking the sound barrier was a very distinct sound that breached the soundproofing of my craft. Unfortunately the paint round couldn't hold up against the tremendous speed and was torn apart. Some of the paint, but not nearly half, did hit Master Miller's ship.

I pulled off left and within second Master Miller had flipped 180 and sprayed a burst from each of his chain guns right at me. I cranked my top boosters as hard as I could and almost hit the ceiling as I shot down hard and fought to keep myself seated. I gunned the throttle and eased off of the boosters, trying to apply hit and run tactics and get out of the range of his weapons. Master Miller was out of my sight, but was still firing from somewhere behind me, off to my right. I extended my haven awareness in that direction and found exactly where he was, and instead of flying dangerously trying to dodge rounds I put up a barrier between us. It wasn't a particularly strong barrier, but it didn't need to be to stop paint rounds. Also, now that I had extended my haven awareness I was finding that flying with it was much easier than flying with my cameras and the interface alone. Within moments blocking and dodging became almost subconscious.

"Good." Master Miller called over the coms channel after the fifth burst was stopped half way between us. "I guess I'll have to step it up a little bit." he added. I was almost about to ask what exactly he meant by step it up when the missile pods on the back of his pods opened up. I almost laughed and wanted to ask if he wanted me to wait to blow up his missiles until they were far enough away to avoid making a mess of his ship. Then I realized that they weren't missiles at all and that this was going to make things far more difficult as the pods scattered about forty of the damned sentry bots that he loved to modify so much. Once they were all out they all started to open fire.

"Hit." Master Miller called as one shot from an angle that I didn't have covered. "You're it!" he added. As he sped off the bots went still.

"Cute." I said back, out of frustration and mild amusement. I knew that energy weapons couldn't actually be made to shoot paint, however they could be modified to be less than lethal. "Are my energy cannons online or do I just have the rail gun?" I asked, trying to get some clarification, the whole while closing in on Master Miller.

"They're at half power." he said. It was then that I realized that the bots hadn't gone completely still but had just stopped firing while they spread out trying to get a better angle and surround me.

"Do your little addition count as a hit." I asked. If they did then they were almost as much of a liability as they were an asset.

"No, why would they?" he said. "They're nothing more than modified ordinance, but I'm still your target. However, feel free to engage them while they're engaging you."

"That must be convenient. Could I add a few of those to my ship.?" I asked.

"They come in handy to hold down an area, but do you honestly think that you'll be flying defensive missions?" he asked. "You're the nail not the hammer. The GPF has enough of a fleet for those types of missions."

Great, I thought to myself as I put the idea of my own sentry bots out of my head, and focused on the task at hand. Now I had to worry about how to dodge forty some guns and shoot them down at he same time. However, on the plus side I could use the beam cannons, which were automatic. I had managed to get close enough behind to Master Miller, that when I shot off a volley one of the sixteen rounds clipped his right wing. I gunned the throttle as Master Miller tried a front flip so that he and his bots were surrounding me. I leaned back on the chassis and shot over him just as he was finishing the flip and was out of the cordon tat he was trying to make. With one of the booster handles to the front and the other to the back boosters, I twisted the handles in opposite directions. The result was a twisting flip that left me facing the direction that I'd come from. facing right side up. I found the angles for a few of the sentry bots in my haven awareness, picked the closest one and shot another volley and it went down.

I sped back into the middle of the sentries and made short passes back and forth, dodging and deflecting their rounds and I sent burst after burst into the areas where the sentries were still grouped close together. I did well at thinning their numbers and before long there were only twenty or so left. Master Miller was doing his best to try and hit me, but the paint rounds couldn't break through the barrier that I'd wrapped myself in, and with the splatter effect of the paint rounds from the rail guns, He'd probably wind up hitting more of his bots than me and essentially blinding them. So the he opened up with a few missiles and I was glad to see that not all of his missile pods held the troublesome sentries. I thought that the missiles would just hit my haven barriers and be done so I didn't pay much attention to them. That was a mistake. They punched through my barrier and broke apart into hundreds of much smaller projectiles.

"Tag." he called again, as several of the small projectiles hit my ships shielding.

I found Master Miller in my haven awareness. With both, my shockhaven control, and the ship's booster controls, I brought my ship in line with his and fired another burst from each of my beam cannons. "You're it." I called, as one of the shots hit his deflector shields and streaked off through the darkness.

"Good work, let's call it a draw for now. We'll get back out and go over some more things soon enough." Master Miller said, and he and his sentry bots headed towards the hanger. "I'd coach you through a landing, but I think you can handle it on your own." he added.

"Yes sir, it won't be a problem." I said following him into the hanger. Learning how to pilot my own ship would be one of the last major things I would have to learn before I would start going on actual missions. I would like to say that the idea of taking a life scared me, but it didn't. It was what my whole life's training had been building up to. In fact I was looking forward to using the skills I was taught to do what I thought was right.
Chapter Eighteen

Eathen and Katelin talked the rest of the afternoon away, and the sun was already beginning to set by the time that either of them looked out to see what time it was.

"So," Katelin began. "Do you wanna come out on the porch and watch the sun set with me? That is, if your leg is okay. I don't want you to hurt yourself." Her mind was racing the moments the words left her mouth. She, watched the sunset nearly every night so it was normal for her, but he didn't know that. Would he be expecting it to be romantic? She knew that his knowledge of normal interaction between people was lacking, but what was more romantic than a country summer sunset? Did she want it to be romantic, or rather, did she want to be romantic with him? They weren't that far apart in age and she'd already kissed him once.

Eathen could tell that Katelin was anxious, but didn't know why. Maybe it was because she didn't want him to hurt himself just to be with her. Eathen couldn't help but smile at the thought of her concern. "My leg is fine." he said fanning away her concern. "And I would like that very much if you wouldn't mind the company."

The two of them walked to the porch in an almost awkward silence, broken only by the sound of Eathen's sword hitting the ground, the one that he was still using as a cane. As they stepped out on the the porch they both noticed that there was a strong wind coming in from the opposite direction direction as the setting sun.

Katelin shivered and Eathen noticed even though she tried to hide it. "It's a little chilly, do you need a jacket or something?" he asked and almost instinctively began searching for the nearest jacket."

Katelin stood up. "Yeah, I'm gonna go grab one. Do you want me to get you something too?" she asked.

"I'll be fine, but thank you." Eathen said.

Katelin would've argued, but she knew that with as tough as he was a little bit of cold wouldn't bother him in his baggy sweat shirt and sweat pants. She however, was in a thin tee shirt, boy shorts, and hated being cold. So she grabbed her winter coat and snuggled close to Eathen on the porch swing.

"I'm back, hope you didn't miss me too much." she said with a smile.

After several years of training under Master Sam, Master Jason, and Master Miller, Eathen was quite skilled at sarcasm and the art of wordplay. "Nope, you made it back just in time." he said with a smile.

"Just in time for what?" she asked, just as he hoped she would.

Eathen did his best to hide his smile and look as desperate as he could. "To save me. I don't know if I could've gone another moment without you." he said letting his smile come through.

Katelin started to blush. "Don't forget that I did save you once already." she said giving him a playful nudge and blushed even more as he let her get even closer and took her hand in his.

"I'll never forget that you saved me. Ever." Eathen said, meaning every word.

Katelin didn't know what to say so she gave his hand a gentle squeeze and turned to look at the setting sun. It was painting the sky almost purple and the clouds red and orange. "It really is beautiful." she said. "The sunset I mean." she added and laid her head on his shoulder.

Eathen had seen the sun set on more than a few different worlds, but it was different here. He hadn't paid much attention to the simple beauties of life much before and maybe, he let himself think that this particular sun set was so wonderful because he was sharing it with Katelin. "It is nice." he said after a few moments.

"Is it like this on other planets?" she asked.

"Kind of, but this is different." he said.

"Different how?" she asked.

Eathen thought for a moment, trying to think of how to put it into words. "The sky seems bigger and clearer here. It's beautiful." he finally said, leaning his head against hers.

"Do you ever wonder what it would look like from up there?" she asked, lifting her head to the sky.

"I use to." Eathen said, thinking back to when he was a little younger in age, but much more so in experience.

"I bet it was beautiful. I've always wanted to fly, to see everything from up there must be magical." she said.

Eathen stood up and using his shockhaven to help him walk, without a limp, out into the yard.

"What are you doing?" Katelin asked following him out to the yard.

"Do you wanna see it?" Eathen said and she looked even more confused. "The sun set from the sky." he added, trying to make sense to her. Katelin still didn't have a clue what he was trying to ask her and it showed. Finally he said, "Do you want to fly with me and see the sunset?"

"How?" she asked, still confused.

Eathen took off his sweat shirt and smiled. He wasn't normally a show off, but he wasn't shy either. He sent the sweatshirt to the porch swing and created a small glowing red orb of shockhaven energy, maybe a half a foot in diameter, and held it hovering in front of his chest. He would have to get use to the new color, he thought to himself. Eathen spoke five words to the orb the Katelin couldn't make and then pushed it into his chest. Then he started to glow and out of his back shot two wings over seven feet each. As the glow faded Katelin saw that the glow had changed Eathen somewhat. He was slightly taller and looked a little older and the two giant wings were covered in bright red feathers.

"Do you want to fly with me?" he asked again.

Katelin stumbled forward with her mouth hung open in awe. She reached and started to stroke one of Eathen's wings. They were soft, but still looked like they were more than powerful enough to get the both of them airborne "How is this even possible?" she finally asked.

"I promise to tell you all about it later, but if you want to see the sunset then we should hurry." he said extending his hand to her.

Katelin hesitated, but it wasn't that she didn't trust Eathen. However, to be fair, he did fall out of the sky to even get here in the first place, and Katelin was certain that she wouldn't survive a fall from the clouds. On the other hand he was giving her the chance of a lifetime and she knew that wouldn't put her in danger. At least not real danger. Finally she took his hand, Eathen pulled her close, and wrapped his arms around her waist and she wrapped her's behind his neck.

"Hold on tight." Eathen said as he started to beat his wings hard, kicking up little clouds of dust. If he were on his own he would've simply used his shockhaven to augment a jump and taken to the air that way. However he wasn't alone on this flight and as jerky and rough as that type of take off could be for one person he thought better of it. Besides, he wasn't in a hurry and this wasn't combat. This was a nice relaxing flight, whose only purpose was to be just that, nice and relaxing.

Slowly the two of them rose into the air and started to gain more speed the higher they went. Eventually they stopped flying up and started flying out towards the setting sun with their bodies parallel to the ground below.

"This is amazing!" Katelin called out as she held on for dear life. She knew that she was probably smothering poor Eathen, with her chest as tight as she was squeezing him, but she couldn't bring herself to stop. She'd never been so terrified in her whole life, but she'd never felt so alive.

She kept moving her head around trying to get a better view than what she had, given that she was upside down. This flight was for her, Eathen thought to himself as he tilted his wing so that they rolled and he was the one upside down. "Is that better?" he yelled over the wind. At least he tried to yell, but he was smothered by Katelin's jacket.

Finally Katelin loosened her grip when she realized that she couldn't hear him. As much as Eathen enjoyed being able to do this for Katelin, he couldn't fly upside down, he could only glide. "Let go of my neck and I'll spin you around so you can see better cause I can't fly really well upside down." he said.

Katelin looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "Are you crazy?" she asked.

"I've got a hold of you with my shockhaven. You couldn't fall if you wanted to." Eathen said with enough certainty that Katelin guessed that he'd been holding her the whole time.

She'd already trusted him enough to fly without even a word of safety, so this was just one more step in trusting him. One that she was happy enough to make if it would make this easier on Eathen. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, waited for him to recover, and slowly let go. The feeling that followed was something that Katelin had never experienced before and had trouble putting into words, but she would never forget. When she let go she expected to feel the air pull her back, she expected to feel Eathen's physical grip around her waist tighten, but what happened was anything but expected The rushing air that she could feel on her face and through her coat stopped completely. At least her ability to feel it stopped. She could still hear it as though nothing had happened, but what she felt was a stillness of air like she was in some sort of a small room with no draft. Then slowly she began to turn. At first she thought that Eathen was holding her still while he turned right side up around her, then she realized that she was the one that was actually moving and not that the sky and ground were changing places. It was weird, because she couldn't feel anything moving her or forcing her to turn and then she came to the realization that the absence of feeling was Eathen's shockhaven. She'd never felt her own shockhaven before, so why should she be able to feel his? This was question she would have to ask him later on the ground.

Even though Eathen had himself and Katelin in his haven awareness and control, he hadn't touched her shockhaven with his until he went to turn her. She had a golden warmth that glowed and to him it matched her beauty perfectly. Master Jason had told him that the color of a person's shockhaven was something that even he hadn't managed to learn how to change at will. The color of a person's shockhaven tells you what defines them as a person. Katelin's golden glow said that in spite of all of her loss, or maybe because of it, she was still innocent. She shown with an untainted golden glow while he burned with a blood red crimson that gave truth to the deep anger that raged beneath his calm exterior. The thought was sobering for Eathen. Until now Katelin had know him as an innocent child, a boy in training. Once he explained how this flight was possible and where and how he learned about his wings, her thoughts of his innocence would be gone for better or worse. He had healed enough now that, if after she heard all of the things he'd done she wanted him to leave, he could. for now though, he would do his best to enjoy this moment with Katelin as much as possible.

Katelin was oblivious to Eathen's inner turmoil. The sunset was beautiful and flying was amazing. They had to be a couple of miles away from the house already and the sun had out run them and slowly set before them. With the sun went the warmth and Katelin started to worry about Eathen since he didn't even have a shirt. "Maybe we should head back. It's getting kind of cold." she said.

"Yeah," Eathen said, coming back from his distant thoughts. "You're probably right." he added, resigning himself to the inevitable. With only Katelin's comfort in mind he used his shockhaven to block the wind on the quiet flight back to Katelin's farm.
Chapter Nineteen

Katelin knew that something was bothering Eathen. She'd known since a little after they'd started heading back to the house. At first she thought it was her, but then she realized that whatever it was that was bothering him had nothing to do with her or anything that she'd said or done. He was being too quiet, like someone who had something that they didn't want to tell you, but they knew that they had to. Even if she wasn't great at reading people, she knew that look too well. Whatever it was that was bothering Eathen, she wouldn't let it ruin the magical evening that he'd just given her.

Eathen slowed down their descent with a few beats of his wings and shockhaven to the point that their touch down was gentle, smooth, and just a few yards away from the porch. He was waiting for Katelin to brake the silence and ask more about his wings and in turn his first mission.

Instead Katelin took him by the hand and walked him to the porch and together they sat down on the swing. "So," she began, "Are you gonna tell me what's wrong, or do you want me to guess?"

At first Eathen wanted to tell her that nothing was wrong, but he knew if she was already this insistent that it wouldn't work. "I learned about my wings on my first mission." he said with a voice that was so serious and filled with such sorrow that he seemed to age right before her eyes.

"What happened?" Katelin said in a tone that was far more kind than her first.

"The same thing that happened on every mission." Eathen began. "I killed a lot of people and watched them die without hesitation."

"And then what happened?" Katelin asked.

Eathen was stunned. He was so worried about Katelin's reaction. He was so sure that she would think he was a heartless murdering monster, but she just moved past it like it was nothing at all. he was utterly speechless.

Katelin finally knew by his silence what was bothering Eathen and almost had to laugh. "I'm sorry, I mean, I've never killed anybody before, but I knew you had." she paused. Eathen looked at her and she put her hand on his cheek. "I'm may not be a genius, but I'd like to think I'm somewhat bright. I mean, you have been telling me about your training and you carry a sword." she said, looking into his eyes and smiling.

Eathen couldn't believe that he'd given her so little credit, of course she knew. With as smart as she was she would have been lying to herself if she didn't. "So you don't think I'm a monster?" he said, still barely able to get past his shame and look her in the eye.

"No, no I don't." she began and her smile faded. "I think that whoever decided to use children as weapons is a monster. I think that you were a child who had everything normal stolen from you, yet in spite of that or maybe even because of it you're a humble, wise, young man who thinks of others first. You're a good person and even though you've done things that you're not proud of, in your past, you own up to them and don't try to blame anyone else but yourself." She leaned in and kissed him on the forehead. "Nobody's perfect." she added.

Eathen brought his hand up and brushed a few strands of stray hair back behind her ear. "You would be surprised how close you are." he said and kissed her back. Even if he had never thought it was possible before, he thought Katelin was perfect for him now. "Thank you." he said, when their lips finally parted.

"For what?" she asked.

"For being as wonderful as you are." he said, meaning every word.

She smiled and blushed. He was sweet and she could tell that he really did care for her deeply. She thought for a moment about where this, her and him, would lead. Then she decided that it didn't matter, it didn't have to go anywhere, and hat they could stay together on the farm as long as they liked. "You don't have to tell me about it if you don't want to, but no matter what you tell me I'll never think you're a monster." she said.

"I think it's better if you know everything and it might make me feel better about it if I just get it all out there." Eathen said. After psyching himself out so much over telling Katelin he was beyond relieved that she handled it so well. He should've known had nothing to be afraid of, he thought to himself, Katelin was just that wonderful. So he decided to tell her everything and if she still wanted him to stay then he would make a new home here with her.
Chapter Twenty

It was my first mission. Two separate terrorist groups were holding a meeting to discuss merging together. Each of the groups was led by a council of twelve powerful immortals, and the idea was that without the leadership the two groups would fall apart. My mission was to eliminate all twenty-four of the immortals and any security that they might have with them. It was a simple in and out mission.

I was beyond nervous. I was glad the I didn't have to go into space combat, as I piloted the stealth fighter that I'd just learned to fly a few days earlier. They, the two dozen immortals, were going to be holding their meeting in the courtyard of a villa. The villa was on the outskirts of a city, who's name I was never given on Mavous, a large planet with a population a little over ten billion. There was enough air traffic that I was told my approach would go practically unnoticed and it did. The walls of the villa gave me enough cover that I was able to land fairly close. I wish that I could say that I had some great plan, but some would call my plan great in its simplicity. I was going to walk into the villa, make my way to the courtyard and politely ask the two dozen immortals to kindly surrender. When that didn't work I was to engage and eliminate them.

Without my armor on I crossed the distance, between my ship and the villa, at a pace that said I had a place to be, but that I wasn't in a hurry. I didn't need to set off any alarms and give the immortals a chance to flee. If I was stopped I would use my size and age to my advantage and claim to be an errand boy for one of the immortals. If that didn't work I would try to deal with the obstacle without needlessly killing them, but if i had no other alternatives then I was authorized to kill anyone that stood in the way of my mission.

I made it to a side door that was a lot less crowded than the main entrance without incident. The door was locked with a conventional bolt lock that needed a physical key. There were no security cameras in sight and although there was some foot traffic on the street that ran in front of the villa's main entrance, there didn't seem to be anyone on patrol. Maybe they were so confident in their own power that they weren't worried about a little breaking and entering, I said to myself as I got ready to pick the lock. Lock picking was one of the tasks to improve my shockhaven control that Master Jason had given me in the beginning of our training. It wasn't that I couldn't just remove the door from my path and its hinges, but again if I could make it to the courtyard without being detected it would make this all go a lot easier. So I used my shockhaven to convince the lock that the right key was in the key hole and opened the door quietly and easy.

The inside of the villa resembled more of an up scale family mansion than a terrorist headquarters, but at the time I'd never seen either, so I paid it little mind as I made my way through the villa. Using my haven awareness I mapped out the villa from where i was to the courtyard. With my haven awareness I easily avoided the staff, or other terrorists, with only my haven awareness all I could tell was that they weren't immortals meaning they weren't my concern. I made it to the doors of the courtyard without being seen and beyond them I could feel a cluster of power that had to be the immortals. I took a deep breath to prepare myself for the coming battle, pushed open the double doors and marched through.

What awaited me on the other side was not at all what I had expected. It was a beautiful garden with two long marble tables across from each other at its center. Vines with beautiful purple flowers climbed the surrounding walls on all sides. The garden itself was filled with bushes and flowers of every color imaginable and was separated by the white marble pathway that I was now walking on. I reached the end of the tables and stopped. No one sitting at the tables, which each sat a meter or so from the walkway, seemed to notice me at all. They were all looking forward at a man standing on a bench that was past the tables, at the end of the walkway.

"We must join together if we are to have any hope of overthrowing this tyrannical oppression. They limit us, force us to register our purity levels, tax us based on those levels, and use that money to fund private wars to further oppress our brothers. This must..." the man on the bench said, trailing off when he finally realized that I was there. "And who might you be?" he asked, and in an instant two dozen sets of eyes were on me.

He was more polite than I had expected from a terrorist leader, and although he was my enemy, that itself was no reason to be rude. "My name is Eathen Yeagher gentlemen." I said, addressing the whole crowd who was no doubt wondering the same thing as him.

"Well young Mr. Yeagher," the man began and stepped down from the bench. "Seeing as how you were not invited to this little meeting I must ask you to leave."

"I am afraid that I cannot do that." I began, stepping forward. "You see I am here on urgent business. By order of the Galaxy Police Force you are all here by under arrest on charges of treason and terrorism." I said. I expected them to laugh in my face, or be angry that a child was "pretending" to arrest them. The last thing I expected was for them to take me seriously.

"You have made a mistake in coming here." he said and the rest of the immortals rose from their seats to make a circle around me. "I don't know what manor of demon or twisted science you are" he continued, as he summoned a bladed staff. "But it is unwise to stand alone before so many immortals."

I summoned both my sword and my reploid armor before I spoke. "I can assure you that I am no demon, although I am a hybrid. From the weapons and threats I can assume that you have no intention to come quietly." I said, prepared to defend myself.

"You don't seriously think you can take on all of us do you?" one of the other immortals said stepping out onto the walkway. Several of his companions motioned for him to back off, but that only seemed to spur him on. "No, hybrid or not he is still only a child and should learn his place." he said to the others as though I wasn't even there. Then he turned to me. "Now kneel before your better and show your elders respect." he said. I made no move to kneel hoping that it would spur the disrespectful immortal into attacking me and in turn getting what he deserved. He raised his hand and I got my wish. "I said kneel!" he yelled and brought down a wave of shockhaven energy to try and force me down.

His power wasn't close to mine and with as wide spread and unfocused as his wave was I didn't even have to use my own shockhaven to stay standing. I remember feeling disappointed as I raised my left arm and brought my blaster forward. If I had spent my entire life training for this it almost felt too easy. I fired a blast more than powerful enough to break through any shield that some one that weak could manage to put up, and with that the battle began.

When I felt the twenty-some unfocused shockhaven blasts in my haven awareness I was glad that I had my armor on and only had to cover the exposed parts of my face with a shockhaven barrier The weak blasts hit my armor like water an rocks. Then the lead immortal closed in and engaged me in close combat. As skilled as I may have been in sword combat, I didn't regularly train against other blade weapons and the man with the bladed staff was pushing me back with a constant assault However, it didn't take me long to find the rhythm in his strikes and I sent my sword back to my sheath as he twirled the staff around like a baton.

This was where I would prove to him and everyone else here that we were not equals, I thought to myself. I timed it just right and I reached out and caught the blade-less end of the staff. Rather than fight for control of the weapon I raised my blaster and fired. the blast from point blank crushed his sternum and sent him flying back into the marble bench. He hit the bench with enough force to shatter both the stone and his spine. I was sure he wouldn't be getting up any time soon, but I was not there to cripple their leadership, so I threw the staff blade end first like a spear and ended a life for my first time.

There would be time for me to dwell on the act of taking my first life later. Two immortals had just stepped onto the path, and they were both wearing reploid armor.

"You are not the only hybrid here." One of the two hybrids began. His armor was red while his partner's was charcoal gray. They were on opposite sides and closing in on me.

"Although you may be the only one who goes into battle without fully understanding their own abilities, the truths of immortality." the man in gray began.

They both came to a stop about five feet from me on either side and summoned swords in unison. They were close enough that if I attacked one the other could attack from my back quicker than they thought I could turn and defend myself. It was a good strategy, that showed that these men were skilled fighters, but I had been trained by the Masters all my life.

"This is your last chance. Surrender and you'll be allowed to live." the red armored reploid warned.

I bit back my retort and laughter. This was the first time I'd been allowed to leave the base and If I failed it might be the last time for a long time. If two reploids and some immortals were all that stood in my way I wouldn't fail. I settled into a staggered stance and beckoned the reploid in red armor forward.

"As you wish." he said and clenched his arms in and hunched over. At first I thought he was trying to channel a large amount of shockhaven energy for an attack, but then two giant wings sprang out of his back, as though they had come from within his body. They were the same red as his armor and were covered in feathers like those of a birds.

As if it were some signal, the rest of the immortals began sprouting wings of their own. I thought it was some strange technique that the immortals had learned and shared with each other. They all had wings of nearly every color, and while half of them had wings that resembled those of a bird, covered in feathers, the other half had wings that were more like those of a dragon fly, thin and transparent.

As confused as I was by their sudden additions I didn't ave time to think about the deeper meaning to them. In the seconds that I had spent stunned the two reploids had spurred into action. The one in front of me, the one in red, had jumped and was now coming down in an over head strike that would test my blocking abilities. The other, more pressing, issue was the hybrid in gray, who was coming in low and fast. It was a clever team tactic. While surrounding an enemy from the same short distance one would come in for an attack and take a longer route. Then his teammate would attack taking a shorter route faster. While the enemy was trying to block the first person who attacked, the teammate would land his strike killing their enemy. It was a good strategy but, with my haven awareness I saw through it before it was ever any danger to me.

I shot two blasts, both more powerful than the ones before, at the reploid in red. If he was at all skilled he'd be able to block them, but they would slow him down and give me some time to deal with the other one. I let the recoil from my blasts add to the momentum as I spun around and batted the sword thrust from the gray reploid to the side. Continuing that same move meant I summoned my sword to my hand and brought it down with crushing force. He brought his own sword up in time to deflect the blow. I used the rebound technique to maintain all of the power and spin back the way I came. as I spun I brought my blade down and under the guard of the reploid in red. With a twist of my wrist I brought my sword up and cut off both hands at the wrists where the joint made a weak spot in the armor. He screamed out in pain and shock as his hands, still gripping his sword hit the ground. Blood splatter filled the air and I was confident that he would either die from shock or blood loss, so I turned my attention back to the hybrid in gray.

I drove him back along the path with a series of back and forth slashes. They were predictable that he could block them, but with my one handed style and the rebound technique, blocking was all he could hope to do against the growing power and speed. I kept my haven awareness open to the whole courtyard as I drove the hybrid further down the path and into the center of the immortals circling us. If it would've just been the two of us fighting I would've stopped driving my rhythmic attack and exploited some of his openings. However this fight was not simply just between the two of us. With three of them down already I didn't know if this hybrid would try to grab a hold of me while I was delivering the finishing strike so that the others could finish me. There was no need to take that risk, so instead I tried to lure some of the others in by looking preoccupied with the fight I was currently in. It didn't take long to work, two immortals had taken to the air and were coming in from what they thought was my blind spot. The fact that they thought the hybrid was enough to keep my focus, and that they could sneak up on me, was enough in it self to show that they were no where near my equals. I didn't have blind spots and as they closed in, one with a bladed staff the other with a sword both pointed at my neck, I focused the built up power to show the how much different we truly were.

I waited until they were too close to alter their course. I used the momentum from my last blocked strike to spin me around to face my would be attackers. I brought my blade across my body in one smooth swift arch from right to left, cutting the bladed head off of the staff and knocking the sword from the others hands. Then I discharged all of the energy that I had stored up in one crescent as I brought my blade back across in a diagonal slash from left to right. The brilliant white arch of energy tore through the two unarmed immortals and sent what was left of their broken corpses flying back in the directions from which they'd come, leaving behind several feathers that had been knocked loose and were now speckled red with the blood that still hung in the air.

Snapping out of the shock of seeing his comrades, and possibly friends, torn apart just a few seconds to late, the gray armored hybrid brought down his sword in an overhand strike. With my back still to him I raised my blade and blocked the strike. He pulled back getting ready for a thrust, but with a twist and a spin I drove the tip of my blade into his neck. Most reploid armor is built the same way and the armor around the neck is thin and designed for mobility and to give some protection from fragments and stray particles. It was never meant to stand up to a direct attack. If he hadn't dropped his defensive shielding to put all of his power into his attack, I might not have been able to get through his defenses with the angle I was at. As it was, he was bleeding heavily from the stab wound and would die soon enough if he didn't do something to stop the bleeding.

However apparent this might have been to me, the hybrid was battle raged and was intent on killing me or dying trying. He reached up and grabbed my sword with one hand while it was still in his neck. He raised his sword with the other hand in a way that said he'd never fought one handed before. I almost felt pity for him when I raised my left arm cannon that he'd somehow forgotten about. Almost. Pity bred hesitation and hesitation meant death. I leveled the cannon with his face and fired a powerful blast without hesitation. I saw the horror in his eyes before they, and the rest of his face, ceased to exist.

I Sent a burst of shockhaven to the ports on my boots and took to the air. Even with their wings I was more maneuverable by far in the tight quarters of the courtyard. The walls of the courtyard went up about five or six stories on all sides, and I flew straight up. The immortals nearly all took to the air after me as though I was going to try to run away. When I reached the top of the walls I flipped upside down. The immortals were still flying up, chasing after me. I picked the path that would take me through the largest cluster of the airborne immortals, sent a boost of shockhaven to the ports in my boots, and shot off towards them. Most of them hadn't even realized that I'd flipped upside down. The few of them that did barely had enough time to bring up their weapons. The first immortal was in the process of bringing up his sword when I swung mine, taking his head clean off. The next immortal in my path wasn't as lucky as the first. His death wasn't nearly as quick and painless as the first. I cut his wings off and he free fell the nearly forty feet into the stone table below. The next lost an arm, the fourth took a slash across the chest and a quick blast from my left arm cannon sent him crashing into the courtyard wall. I flipped forward, landed in a crouch and the force of my impact left a small crater in the dirt of the garden where I landed. Around me the bodies of the immortals that I'd cut down in the air hit the ground with a sound of limp human flesh that I knew I could never forget.

As I stood up and looked around I saw that the collective attitude of the immortals had shifted. They knew that I wasn't running away, and that I wasn't leaving until they were all dead. They knew that if they stayed on the defensive, that I would cut them down one by one. I saw it in their eyes as slowly, one by one, they came to the conclusion that the only chance that they had to survive was to work together. As I saw their determination to live I knew that I couldn't give into it. They were my enemies and however moving I found their determination, they were still my enemies and their success meant my death.

I rose to meet the screams and blades of two immortal charging me head on. They came at me with inward horizontal slashes. I blocked the one on the left with the tip of my left arm cannon in the same way that Master Jason would've. At the same time I blocked the other slash with my sword. Then almost as one they came down with twin vertical strikes. I blocked both of their strikes with my sword over head and as one they tried to push me back. I held strong and didn't move other than to raise my left arm cannon and shot the one on my right. He flew black and I let the other immortals sword slide harmlessly to the side. Before I could do anything, two more immortals came up on either side with thrusts of their own. I sent my blade back to my sheath It was unnecessary given the gap of power between us, and as they were closing in on me it was becoming too difficult to use in the close quarters. I had spent enough time training with Master Jason to learn how he was able to block my sword strikes with nothing more his bare fingertips.

I batted the thrust from my left to the outside with the tip of my blaster and caught the thrust from my right between two fingers. With a push, followed quickly by a pull, I brought the blade of the immortal on my right into the path of the downward slash from the one in the middle who had just recovered his footing. I jumped back before two more immortals tried to pear me from either side. The five of them were huddled so close that I had to take advantage of it. As they all recovered their stance I summoned the large marble table from it's resting place to a foot or so over their heads. I should've used my shockhaven to block the gore that splattered out as the weight of the huge stone table crushed the five of them into little more than soup. The loud splashing thud was followed by a silence as the plan of working together to kill me was literally crushed, and the immortals spread out to avoid becoming targets.

The shift in the attitude reminded me of a saying that Master Miller had told me. "On the field the battle is fought, but in the mind the war is won." By breaking the idea that the could over power me as a group, I had destroyed their moral and I could tell that they were afraid Over half of their forces were dead or dieing already. That with the addition of their only sound plan of attack gone, they were already beaten, but didn't want to admit it.

"This is over. You cannot possibly hope to win." I said, trying to reason with the remaining immortals. "Surrender now or you will all die here, in this courtyard." I didn't think that they would actually surrender, but given the situation I at least wanted them to know that the choice to die fight was theirs to make.

As if he was waiting to answer me for his reappearance, a very pale hybrid in red armor stepped forward. Although he should've been unarmed in the most literal sense, he was holding a sword in each hand. "Under the rule of your Galaxy Police Force, treason and terrorism are both punishable by death. Either we can stand here and fight with honor, or we give ourselves to the mercy of your merciless government." As one the immortals raised their weapons. "Our choice is clear." he said.

As moving as his speech was, it changed little. He may have somehow re-attached his arms, but he'd lost enough blood that the idea of him actually putting up a better fight was a joke. I closed the distance between the two of us, and he brought up both of trembling blades up in defense I attacked with a series of right hand finger strikes. I wasn't going nearly as fast as I could've been, but it was enough to drive him back. The scene in the courtyard was very different from when I first walked in. The once smooth path was now a mess of broken stone, blood puddles, fallen feathers, and random bodies or parts of them. I had mapped them all out in my haven awareness, but the hybrid apparently had not, so he lost his footing and fell. Determined not to let him die, one of the other immortals leaped forward and tried to spear me with his bladed staff, from my left side. I turned to face him, caught the staff just below the blade with my right hand, and then drove it into the chest plate of the fallen hybrid. I let go of the staff just as the immortal realized his own weapon had been used to kill their last hope. With my right hand free I reached up and choke slammed the immortal, who was still holding his staff. I crushed his windpipe with the slam, but after seeing the hybrid re-attach his hands, I wasn't leaving anything to chance. I brought my blaster to the side of his head and fired. If he could come back from that, then I was in for a much longer fight than I had planned on.

As I stood up another pair of immortals closed in on me from either side. They stopped out of reach, took up defensive stances and held their ground. As I waited to see if they'd attack, two more immortals took up positions in front and behind me, then waited. It was the smartest tactic they'd used. They'd wait for me to attack then come at once and hope that I couldn't block them at all at once. Sound, but only if I moved to attack them. I reached out in my haven awareness to the still standing marble table. I summoned the table into four equal pieces, one over each of the immortals heads. None of them were expecting it and even if they were, each piece was easily over two tons. The best the could've hoped to do was dive out of the way. As it was, they were all crushed by the weight.

The last three immortals rushed me together once the dust settled. I drew my sword as the first of the three immortals came with a rising diagonal slash that I blocked easily enough. When he pulled his blade back to go for another strike I tilted my wrist forward and slashed both of his forearms. He dropped his sword and with a thrust, I put the tip of my blade through his heart. The next immortal was behind me with his blade raised high, thinking that the first would've given me more of a challenge. If he had been just a bit faster it might have worked, but before he could bring down his blade I spun with my blade out, cutting both of his his arms off at the shoulder and his head at the neck.

As his body hit the ground with several thuds I looked at the last living immortal. To his credit he was still holding his sword, although he and it were both shaking with fear. "You do know this is pointless." I began. For some reason, after killing twenty-three immortals, I fell compelled to limit the blood shed. Maybe I thought on some sub conscience level, that saving one life would atone for the ones I'd just taken, or maybe I was just tired of the slaughter. "If you surrender now, you may yet live." I didn't think the Galaxy Police would just let him go. Especially after armed resistance. However, they would want to question him at least, before they sentenced him to death. Looking back on it now I didn't truly know how hard they'd ask. "But, if you continue I will kill you." I said.

"Demon child." he said, then sheathed his sword. At first I thought he was actually surrendering, but then he started to shine brighter and brighter in my haven awareness. He shot haven blast after haven blast at me from his palms. The first blast I blocked with my armor alone, was surprisingly powerful and the second was even stronger. I put up a barrier for the third and they just kept coming. As the blasts continued to grow stronger, he continued to shine brighter and brighter, both in my haven awareness and in my natural sight. He was actually glowing red and screaming. I started to deflect the blasts instead of absorbing the full force of the blasts. Then both my haven awareness and my natural sight whited out and a blast of force more powerful than anything I'd ever seen broke through my barrier and hit me exploding in a flash of white. I was knocked from my feet and into the wall behind me.

When my eyes finally adjusted and I climbed out of the wall that I'd been knocked into literally, I looked around the courtyard. The final immortal had exhausted his shockhaven in his attempt to kill me. Feathers were still falling. Some of them were naturally red, but most of them had been died that color with the blood of the fallen. The rest of the courtyard was a mess from the massacre Dead bodies lay in grotesque positions where they'd fallen in battle. Fragments of those who were crushed were scattered indiscriminately throughout the courtyard. The once beautiful garden was now a scene of death and the ground was tacky with the blood of the immortals. I felt it my duty to honor those who had fought and died, so I took in every detail of the courtyard. "Find peace." I said and bowed my head. As I stood there in silence, one of the blood died feathers fell before my feet. In a way I felt bad for not burring the fallen, but I knew that I couldn't. This was a war against the idea of terrorism and treason and it was images like the courtyard that would detour anyone who saw them from attempting the same. Still I wanted to do something to show my respect for the departed. I knelt down and dug a scoop of dirt and placed the feather inside and buried it in place of the immortals themselves.

I sent shockhaven to the booster ports on my boots and flew up and over the walls of the courtyard, away from the villa and towards my ship. Discretion was really no longer necessary, since there was nobody left to warn. By the time that anyone made the connection that I was related to the slaughter, I would be far out of the system. The mystery would add to the fear and in reality, even if somebody saw me flying away and reported me, it wouldn't matter. I was on a government sponsored mission to kill suspected terrorists, but the public would never know the truth. They would be told some lie that everyone would know was a lie. It was all part of the plan to make me into even more of a mystery. It wasn't the face of a child, my face, that would bring fear to those who would stand in opposition to the Galaxy Police Force. The greatest fear of mankind was the fear of the unknown, but they had to be given a reason to fear it. In other words they have to be shown that there is something out there to be afraid of, but not know what it was. I was that unknown and they would all grow to fear me.

I landed next to my ship, that was surrounded by a group of on lookers. I paid them no mind, as I summoned my flight helmet and opened the cockpit. There were whispers from the people, who had given me and my ship so distance, as I climbed in and closed the cockpit. As I cleared the atmosphere I tried to organize my thoughts and put together everything that I had pushed out of my mind during the fight. I had a lot of questions, that I knew I couldn't answer myself so I tried to organize them as I entered the coordinates in the warp drive for the return trip. As the drive powered up I tried to clear my mind and enjoy the emptiness as I left space.
Chapter Twenty-One

The trip back was uneventful and after a quick statement of mission complete I hit the showers to rinse any of the gore that managed to get between my armor and my skin. When that was done I went to find Master Jason. He was in his chambers and while I knew where they were, I had never been inside, simply because I never had a reason. Weather that was out of some grand design of Master Jason's or just a fact I didn't know. I had just ended the lives of twenty-four immortals without hesitation and wasn't in the mood to ponder over obscurities. The more I thought about what all to ask Master Jason, the more I thought that he had to have known all about the powers and skills of these immortals. When I reached for the coms unit to let Master Jason know that I was here, the video feed came to life before I actually touched anything.

"Good evening Eathen." Master Jason Said through the speaker. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked, looking neither confused nor as though he'd been caught off guard by my arrival.

"I completed my assignment and had a few questions. If this isn't a good time..." I said letting my sentence trail off.

"No, No. this is as good a time as any. Come on in." he said and the door opened "I figured you might have a few more questions after coming into contact with other immortals." Master Jason said.

I followed his voice down the short, door lined hallway, to a small sitting area with two comfortable looking chairs. Master Jason was sitting in one and motioned for me to take the other. I nodded and sat. "I trust your mission went well?" he asked.

"Well enough. There were some things that might have been good to know before hand, thing that could've been included in the intelligence report, but it was nothing beyond my ability to handle." I said as I made myself comfortable.

"And, if you don't mind, could you elaborate on these missing pieces of information for me?" he asked as though he was expecting what I would say next.

I knew that there were things that I hadn't been taught yet, and I was okay with being patient and learning them at the Master's pace. Rather than play word games, I told him of the hybrids that I'd come across on my mission.

"Oh," Master Jason said, sounding genuinely surprised for the first time that night. "I'm sure that you adapted and did just fine."

"They didn't prove to be beyond my abilities, no. Although, one of them did manage to heal himself." I said, trying not to talk too negatively about the dead.

"Healing is a skill that you've not been taught yet, but it is another application of shockhaven control. Still, how did he heal himself exactly?" he said, as though I should've known about healing already.

I bit back my frustration. Why hadn't I been taught how to heal myself before I was sent on an actual mission? Were they so confident that I wouldn't be hurt? "He reattached his arms after I cut them both off just above the wrist." I said, calming myself. I was more than capable of completing the mission, I told myself and decided that it really didn't matter. It was done and over with.

"I'm sure that after you've learned the theory behind shockhaven healing, that it won't be outside your abilities. Although it's important to know that healing doesn't make the pain from the injury disappear. Teaching you how to not need to heal yourself seemed more pressing." he said and I couldn't help but acknowledge that he had a fair point. "However, I'm sure that is not why you're here." he added.

Why was I there, I asked myself. Was I there to express my anger over not being told anything of the abilities of immortals, because if I was, then I was doing a horrible job. Rather than bring emotions into it I just simply asked what I wanted to know. "What is the full extent of an immortal's power?"

He sighed, then smiled. "You do understand that we, the Masters, have little to do with choosing your missions and weather or not you are even ready to go on them." he said.

Answering a question with a completely unrelated question was a tactic to change the direction of a conversation. "Your point sir?" I asked.

"My point is that if it were up to me or, any of the other Masters you wouldn't have seen action for months maybe even a year. I would have taught you everything I know about immortality and so would've the other masters long before you ever faced one in combat." he said.

"A little late for that don't you think?" I paused. "But I understand." I said. I couldn't be that angry given that I had suffered no injuries. "So what can you tell me about other immortals?" I asked, deciding that I would just let it go and get the answers I'd come for.

"Quite a good bit so I suggest we start at the beginning." he said, and I nodded. "The term immortal refers to a person who's spiritual purity is above or below the level of normal mortals. There are several different levels of immortality." he said, summoning a piece of paper to the table and a pen to his other hand. "This," he said, drawing a horizontal line on the paper. "Is what is known as the purity scale. In the middle," He said drawing a circle in the middle of the line. "You have mortals. Then to the right," he said, as he drew a circle to the right of the first. ", you have the first level of immortality. They are known as Nymphs They have the ability to make solid masses with their shockhaven, although, the masses stay transparent, tinted with the color of their shockhaven. The next level," he said, drawing another circle to the right. ", is the level that you were born into. They are known as Arch Angels or Nimpheds. They are able to create solid mass that is no longer transparent and isn't limited in color, but isn't living tissue." The he drew another circle at the right end of the horizontal line. "Then you have the end of this side of the scale. Immortals that reach the final level are simply called Gods. Gods can create life, although most choose not to, out of moral reasons and that history hasn't been as kind to the creations of gods as it should." he said.

"So what's on the other side of the scale?" I asked.

"That is the side for those who's spiritual purity has fallen." he began, while drawing three circles on the left side of the line. "The first are called Imps, and they have the same abilities as Nymphs The next level has the same abilities as Nimpheds and they are called either Damons or Impids depending on who you ask." he said, bringing his pen to the circle at the left end of the line.

"So, what is that level?" I asked.

"Immortals who reach that level are known as Demi. There hasn't been an immortal that has reached the level of Demi in many, many years. They're more rare than Gods and the level itself is far more difficult to reach." he paused. "To become a God one must simply ascend to that level, which is no small feat, but to become a Demi an Arch Angel on the verge of becoming a God must experience something so terrible that they don't simply descend in purity. Their purity must jump to the other side of the scale and in turn they become something so evil that they change the galaxy. Where Gods are said to be the creators of life, Demi are the creators of death and destruction." he said.

Anyone can end a life, I thought to myself. Although, with as rare as Demi were I didn't want to spend time asking about them since I didn't think that I'd be seeing or fighting one anytime soon. "So, if I'm a Nimphed, or at least was born as one, how do I create matter from nothing?" I asked. I was here to learn about the abilities that I was born into and hadn't been taught yet, not the mysteries of the universe.

Master Jason smiled. "To be completely honest I have no idea." he said. Somehow, coming from the man that I thought knew everything, that wasn't surprising. After all, he was only mortal. "However," he began, as though he was offended by my thoughts, which I was growing more and more suspicious that he was able to read them somehow. "I am able to mimic the abilities of a second tier immortal. I can't however, create life or death , regardless of how much shockhaven control I have." he said.

"So you could impersonate a Nimphed if the need arose." I asked, thinking of the implications.

"That, a Damon, or anything in between the two, if I had the need." he added.

"So even though you can't do it the traditional way, you can teach me how to take on my mortal form then?" I asked.

"Yes I can. Along with a great many other things. Your training is far from over, but you have proven yourself capable time and time again. Tomorrow we can begin with the training of your choice. However, this has been a long and eventful day I am sure you have plenty to think over and could use the rest before we get into it." He stood and so did I. "So, if there's nothing else that you would like to ask then I will look forward to our training tomorrow." he said.

"Nothing that can't wait sir." I said. With a nod and a bow I saw myself out the way I came in. Tomorrow I would learn how to grow wings for myself. I couldn't help but see the irony that I was going to learn how to be an immortal from a mortal. Not that I didn't appreciate Master Jason, he was a wonderful teacher, but it was just odd. I learned how to use my reploid armor from an actual reploid, not because it was outside of Master Jason's abilities, but because Master Miller was a master reploid. Wasn't there someone who had mastered the skills of an Arch Angel, that the GPF could've had train me in the ways of immortals, I asked myself.

As I reached my quarters I realized that I was asking the wrong questions. Master Jason was teaching me about the powers of immortals because he was able to. The real question was, why was Master Jason, with all his knowledge, skill and power, still mortal. I knew little of spiritual purity, but I didn't think of Master Jason as evil. He was no more evil than I was and I was still an Arch Angel, at least we thought so. I made it a point that the next day I would ask Master Jason why he was still mortal.
Chapter Twenty-Two

The next morning came and I prepared myself for training the same way that I did every morning. On my way out the door of my quarters I saw a hand written note taped to the inside of my door. In the few months before then I had taken to extending my haven awareness around myself like a protective bubble while I slept. Not that I was worried about the security of my room, or even that of the base's for that matter, but I might not always be sleeping in the base and it was a good skill to have.

That was why the appearance of the note startled me. My awareness in my sleep was far from perfect, but I still should've been able to feel the presence of another person. Upon further investigation of the note I felt relieved.

Eathen;

As I was sitting up last night, contemplating this morning's training, I eventually came to the conclusion that a much simpler man would've come to much sooner. We're going to need a bit more space. The larger room that you and Master Miller have taken to shooting full of holes should be plenty spacious for our needs.

Jason-

I highly doubted that Master Jason took the time to hand deliver the note to my room, break in and tape it to the inside of the door. The piece of paper was small and by itself I could completely understand how I had failed to notice it in my sleep.

As I entered the large empty room I took in all of the damage that Master Jason had pointed out in his note. there weren't any of the the five foot by five foot tiles that were lucky enough to still be in one whole piece.

"It looks like Master Miller's been enjoying himself." Master Jason said nodding towards one of the massive holes that could've only been from Master Miller's rail gun. "I hear he's taken to using cheaper guns when he trains with you after the four of his favorites you cut in half." he said with a smile.

Since he seemed to be in a good mood I figured that this was as good of a time as any to ask the question that had been bothering me since the night before. "Sir, I have a personal question I'd like to ask, if you don't mind." I said.

"Well now, how am I suppose to know if I mind the question if you haven't asked it yet." he said. This was all part of the training. Logic was the father of reason and if I wanted to have an answer to my question I would have to play his word game.

"Well sir, I'm not asking if you mind the question itself, but if you mind the idea of me asking a personal question. If you feel like this may not be the best time, situation, or maybe you just aren't interested in what I have to say, and you would mind the uninvited trespassing into your personal life with my unwanted question then I am simply giving you an opportunity to say so." I said with a grin.

"I suppose I don't mind the idea of a question, and now is as good of a time as any. So, what is it you want to know?" he asked.

"How is it that you're still mortal?" I asked, and he didn't seem to be offended so I continued. "With the wealth of knowledge that you have and the amount of power you wield, how come you've never ascended in purity?"

I knew that the question was highly personal and that it wasn't as simple as he never thought about it. "I haven't always been in the business of training. Throughout my life I have taken many lives and not all of them have been for the best of reasons. I was born naturally gifted and for a great many years I took advantage of that fact. I have done a great many things in my past that I'm not proud of and I haven't always been the man I am today." he said.

Two days ago I would've thought that his was overly cryptic. Being that in the past twenty-four hours I'd ended twenty-four lives, I decided to leave well enough alone. Master Jason was mortal because he couldn't get over the guilt of his horrible past, and that guilt weighed heavily on his spiritual purity. "I understand sir." I said with a nod. At the time I did feel something for ending those lives, but I didn't think it was guilt. They were enemies of the state and had been given multiple opportunities to surrender.

"Good," he said, returning the nod. "So let's begin with the idea of creating matter, shall we?"

I could tell that he was glad that I didn't press further into his dark past. It wasn't that I wasn't curious, but I respected him enough to leave it alone. I hoped that someday he and I might talk about it more but today wasn't that day. "Yes sir." I said knowing that it was going to be quite some time before I would ever get this chance again.

"Somehow immortals can bypass the laws of physics and create matter. As I said before, I have no idea how they are able to do it, but I can imitate it. To do this, I use my haven awareness to find traces of the elements necessary for what I'm trying to create, in the surrounding atmosphere. then I summon that material together into its intended form. In a very literal sense it's creating something out of thin air." he said.

It made sense that his ability to create was based in his advanced haven awareness. I'd never even tried to look that closely at the air, or really anything else for that matter, other than for summoning. Even then I wasn't doing anything more than splitting the plain into the void. This, was telling the difference of the tiny bits of matter hat made up dust particles, and I didn't have the slightest idea as to how I was suppose to tell the difference between things that were beyond microscopic. However I did know that there wasn't enough living, or organic, material in the surrounding air to form wings like the immortals had on my mission. "Sir I think I might be missing something. How do you take the tiny particles from the air and make living, bleeding extensions of your body." I asked, giving voice to my confusion.

"You can't." he said simply with a smile. "I was counting on you asking that very question or else our lesson would've taken a turn away from what you wanted to learn. You can make extensions from what's in your surroundings, but not living ones. What you want to know about is controlled cellular growth, accelerated controlled cellular growth. Using your shockhaven you guide the growth of your own cells into the form that you want. It's the same as healing yourself, and while manipulating cell growth does require a certain level of precision, but it's nothing in comparison to elemental summoning for creation.

So he was depending on me to change the direction and I had. Was I that predictable or was he prepared to teach me either technique? Why else would he give me the information about elemental summoning first? Regardless of his reasoning, or my growing number of questions, I was glad that we were starting with the seemingly easier task of controlled cell growth.

"Pay attention, because I don't enjoy doing this." he said, extending his left arm out and rolling up his sleeve. A razor thin red line, maybe eight inches long appeared out of no where, along the top of his forearm and blood began to trickle out. To his credit, he didn't flinch in the slightest from the cut that had to be at least half an inch deep. Instead he tilted his arm down so that I could see the cut better and spread the cut open with two fingers from his other hand. Fully open, his blood flowed like water from a tap. Then the blood stopped all together. The vanes and arteries began netting themselves back together as the flesh began regrowing underneath. In the span of maybe five seconds the cut was completely healed. From nowhere a wet cloth appeared in his right hand and he wiped the blood off his arm. Then he dropped the cloth to the floor wiped the blood that had fallen with his foot and sent the cloth away.

"As enjoyable as that was, do you feel confident enough to try it yourself?" Master Jason asked.

There hadn't been a skill yet that Master Jason, or any of the other Masters for that matter, had tried to teach me that I'd failed to learn. However, watching Master Jason bleed everywhere didn't help my confidence. I'd been cut in training before, but I'd never bled like that before. "I'm ready sir, but if you don't mind I'll do the cutting myself." I said. I don't know why I thought that cutting myself sounded like a better idea, but it did.

"That's fine by me." Master Jason said, truly seeming not to care, not that I figured he would. He wasn't the type to take any pleasure cutting someone who wasn't fighting back.

I raised my left arm and with my right index finger I drew a line the length of my forearm. I felt like it was on fire but I held back any sign of the pain as best I could. Then when I looked down I was shocked. I could see the cut but it was just a thin red line. With as hard as I clenched my jaw, I couldn't believe that a small cut was all I had to show for my bravery and toughness. Not to mention that I was trying to go at least an inch or so deep. I reached up and pried open the cut with my right hand. In an almost sick way I was relieved to see that I'd made it an easy inch deep at least. When I flexed my forearm, the cut finally split open and showed a nice smooth V-shaped groove easily an inch deep into the muscle tissue underneath. The part that left me stumbling as to what I should do next was that there was no blood. None what so ever. I could look into the groove and see the muscles and the cut vanes and arteries. At that point, since there was no real risk that I was going to bleed out, I decided to give Master Jason a look at it and get his opinion on the whole not bleeding thing.

"Sir," I began as I angled my arm for him to have a better look. "I understand that this isn't normal, but do you have any ideas, recommendations, or information as to why I'm not bleeding?" I asked. Oddly enough I wasn't even worried about it at the time, just confused.

He took my arm in his hand for closer observation and then started trying to get a pulse. "You have a ridiculously low heart rate and that's part of the issue." he said.

"It's normally around twenty or thirty beats per minute sir." I said.

"Well I'd tell you that immortals tend to bleed less than normal mortals, but I can assume that you've seen enough immortal bloodshed to argue that. Also that cut was so precise that you had to pry it open so that may have something to do with it, as well as your normally low heart rate. Then again you might be just lucky and all of the things add up to make it so that you don't bleed." he said, letting go of my arm.

That felt like a pretty poor explanation and I could tell that Master Jason wasn't telling me everything that he thought might cause something so abnormal, but the burning pain in my arm was enough that I didn't push the issue.

"Are you ready to try healing that, or do you want to wait and see if it starts to bleed?" he asked, and I could tell that our conversation over why I wasn't bleeding was over.

I nodded and focused my haven awareness on the cut and watched as the the cells started to heal the cut on their own. In a few seconds I got down the pattern, and all I had to do was replicate what my body was doing naturally and speed it up. Within seconds my arm was back to normal. I flexed my fingers and clenched my fists a few times to make sure that everything was working as it should, and it was.

"Good work. It seems like you have grasp on cuts." Master Jason began. "Do you feel confident enough to try the next phase of healing, or do you want to try cuts some more?" he asked with a smile.

I was confident enough after healing that cut that I didn't want to have to do it again if I didn't have to. "Sure let's move on." I said, and dropped my arms to my side waiting for another demonstration. Then I heard something hit the floor and I felt the strongest itching sensation on my left wrist. When I looked down I realized with an almost grim horror that I wasn't getting another demonstration. My left hand was on the floor and in my shock I grabbed a hold of the stump at the end of my left arm and felt the wet drops of blood slip through my fingers and drop to the floor.

"Well now, see that." Master Jason said pointing to the few drops on the floor. "You can bleed, it's just extremely slow." he said, getting my attention and trying to keep me talking so that I wouldn't go into shock.

I looked back at Master Jason and fought off the shock. At the same time I fought off the pain, the anger, and the almost overwhelming urge to lash out at him with the full extent of my power. "You could've at least given me a warning!" I said, still furious.

He shrugged, which didn't help my anger at all. "I could've, but then your haven shielding would've gone up and made it far more difficult. But regardless of what I could've done that's all in the past and you're still missing a hand." he said, so casually that if it was even possible I wanted to hit him even more. "I'd like you o try regrowing it, but if you can't, or if you have any abnormalities with it then you can cut it off and reattach your old one." he said, still perfectly calm as though we weren't talking about the possibility that I might become an amputee.

I couldn't even bring myself to speak without shouting, so I simply nodded and focused on the stump that was the end of my left arm. I knew a little about human anatomy, but not enough to try and grow a new hand and part of a wrist from nothing. Speeding up the natural healing process that my body would do on its own would just give me a nice new flap of skin to go over the end of my stump, which wasn't an option. So I extended my haven awareness to my 'old' hand on the floor and used it as the blueprints for my work. I started from the base of my wrist and worked outward, creating everything from bone to skin before moving down to my palm and eventually down to my fingers. After about two minutes I had a fully functioning left hand. I flexed and checked each finger by its self, then together. Other than the skin being softer than before there was no noticeable difference.

"Good. It looks like you've got a grasp on regrowing, no pun intended." Master Jason said, and I couldn't help but crack a smile. "So do you feel confident enough to move forward?" he asked.

With as quick as I was to jump to anger, be it justified anger, I almost felt foolish. Other than the pain, which was already gone, he hadn't done anything that had a lasting affect. Still he did just cut my hand off without any warning and then made a bad joke about it, so I wasn't going to apologize for shouting. "You know, normally I would just say yes and move on, but the last time I just said yes wound up loosing a hand. So I guess it depends on what we're moving forward to." I said.

With a sense of humor that was dark and bordered on insanity he summoned my old hand into his, as though he was giving me a hand shake. "To be technical you didn't actually lose anything." he said, waving my hand at me. "Regardless, I figured you were ready to move forward to growing additions, such as the wings you were interested. Unless you'd like to keep working on healing." Then he held out my hand and with a smile added, "A souvenir, unless you want to try to reattach it that is."

"No I think I'm ready to move forward." I said, and looked down at my old hand. I was a little unsure if he was being serious about me taking it or not. I mean he and I both knew that I was somewhat sentimental and had kept the blindfold from our first training session, but keeping my old hand seemed sick. "I think I'll hold off on the hand though." I said.

Master Jason chuckled. "You never know when you might need a hand." he said squeezing the last bit of hand humor before sending off the lifeless appendage. "I'm sure the medical department will enjoy their gift." he said, hinting as to where he was sending my hand. "They've been dying to experiment on you for years, so at least they'll get part of their wish." I could only imagine why the medical department would want to experiment on me, or what those experiments would entail, but I didn't give it much thought at the time. Just another small hint that I wasn't being told the whole truth.

"So growing wings?" I said, trying to get as far away from the bad hand jokes and healing as much as possible.

"Yes. It'll be easier with an example, so I'll go first." he said, getting some space. instead of just taking his shirt off by hand like normal, he sent it off to some unknown location. "It's best to take off your shirt before you try to grow your wings. Otherwise it can get a little cramped and complicated." he said.

I could only imagine the difficulty of trying to grow around the fabric, so I said nothing, nodded, and followed suit. At first I was just going to take the shirt off normally, but then I figured that it was good practice. So I sent the shirt back to my room and considered it practice instead of laziness. Then I opened my haven awareness and waited for Master Jason to begin his demonstration. I didn't have to wait long at all. Once my haven awareness was active Master Jason gave me a nod, turned his back to me, and began. it was a fairly quick process and in reality I didn't need to see the process at all. Just the final product would be enough to let me replicate it myself. All I needed was an example of functioning wings, to see how the bone and muscle structures tied into the body itself. However, it was becoming more and more apparent that Master Jason was holding back information, not about training or techniques, but about me, so I didn't tell him the extent to which I already understood creating.

Even though I'd seen more than twenty immortals sprout wings of their own, watching Master Jason do it in slow motion was strangely beautiful. When he was finished he had two giant wings covered in gray feathers. He turned around and stretched each giant wing as far out as they would reach. "Your turn." he said, with a smile.

I didn't bother to turn my back to him to begin. I began by starting in between my shoulder blades. The bone structure was simple and remind me of another set of arms with shoulders for each, but unlike normal arms they tapered off to a point, and in all they were much thinner, longer and opened up to a thin membrane Feathers were an after addition and were kind of like making fingernails and hair. That was the real difficult part of the whole thing, filling in the membranes and the rest of the wings with feathers and getting the right spacing between them.

It took me slightly longer than it had Master Jason, but when it was done I was truly proud. My wings shown with a beautiful snow white glow. I flexed each wing and stretched them this way and that. I spent a good five minutes shifting all of the different parts and getting familiar with how they moved and responded. I was feeling pretty confident when Master Jason spoke up.

"So, are you gonna try and fly, or was all of this just so that you could look pretty?" he asked, still smiling.

It looked like I wasn't going to get an example for how to fly. That was fine by me, I could already practically fly with my shockhaven control alone. I was happy to take the lead. I stepped back a bit more to give Master Jason some more space so that he wouldn't get hit by any of the dust that I was sure to kick up. I spread both my wings as far out to my side and then I jumped up and forward so that I was gliding over Master Jason. I could glide, but gliding's not flying so once I was behind Master Jason I beat my wings once and felt the jolt as I shot up a few feet. With about five more beats I'd ascended to a respectable height of maybe thirty feet. Each beat pulled harder then expected, and that first flight was anything but smooth. Within moments Master Jason flew up next to me, giving me plenty of space.

"You're not striving to maintain flight with continuous powerful beats. Your wings are large enough that you should be able to glide fairly level without losing height, and only have to gently beat you wings every so often to regain the altitude that you've lost." he said, as he leveled out smoothly at my side. I followed his instructions and began to smooth out myself. "Unlike a bird, you don't have tail feathers, which means that the only form of control you have comes from either your wings or shockhaven influence." Then he turned gracefully to the left until he was flying in the direction we'd come from. "Change the angles and twist your body to turn." he called over his shoulder.

Following his instruction over the next few hours I became a lot closer to competent He was right and really all it amounted to was a twist here and there of my body and wings to change the air flow around me to change directions. When I started to look closer at the whole process in my haven awareness I began to see the patterns of air flow and everything else as mathematical equations and numbers and I stopped needing to ask questions. It was no wonder that Master Jason was so skilled at flying.

Eventually, after doing several different maneuvers from simple turns and flips, to more complicated dives, aerial flips and rapid direction changes, we landed. After he landed Master Jason's wings broke apart into tiny particles of shockhaven energy and dissipated into the air around him. "I don't believe we have the time to work on creating today before your lesson with Master Sam this afternoon." he said, casually.

He had to have known that we would only have time for either creating or healing and body modification, but not both. Was that why he had left the choice up to my determination to learn one or the other? He was always planning, always manipulating thoughts, and I had to wonder how one man, one mortal man, control so much with just his mind.

I couldn't say any of this to him, or any of the other Master for that matter, but I had to say something. "I can only imagine that after so many calculations over such a long time they all must seem to run together and look familiar" I said. I tried to make it vague enough that it could seem like I was talking about flying or just haven awareness in general. Still I knew that he could see through it and into my suspicion I was beginning to simply know that Master Jason was older, much older, than he looked instead of just suspecting it. He hadn't aged a day since before we'd even begun training. In the years that followed that day I had changed dramatically like all children do as they grow up, but I could see the change in not only myself, but also Master Miller, Master Chen, and even in the base staff, whom I didn't know but still saw regularly enough. There was something unnatural about him and although it wasn't dark and apparent, like how Master Samantha was forever young and beautiful, that didn't make it any less fear inspiring.

He turned with the same smile of confidence that was warm and friendly. "A fair point, and there are three truths that you should know that support that theory First: Absolutely everything in the natural world can be represented by numbers. Second: If you were to graph these numbers through sound equations patterns emerge Third: therefor patterns exist everywhere in nature." he said, with the up most seriousness. Then in his normal lighthearted way he said. "You should probably make your way to Master Sam's. I would hate for you to be late listening to philosophy and words to live by."

"Of course sir." I said, with a respectful bow. I turned to leave already deep in thought. Was there something deeper hidden in what he said? Or was it just another mystery to keep my thoughts on safe topics? Regardless of the purpose or hidden motives behind him telling me these truths one thing was certain. They were truths, of this I had no doubt. Whatever truths Master Jason had chosen to omit in the past he had never openly told me a lie. And as much as I thought he was hiding a great deal of things from me, I did have a great deal of respect for the man. So weather or not he intended for it to happen to the degree that I took it would remain in question. From that day forward I took greater notice in the patterns that arose in all things, and the meaning of those patterns.
Chapter Twenty-Three

Master Samantha and I never spared in the traditional sense, because she said that I would have to rely on my combat training given that she was a much faster and much more skilled spell binder. At times she might test my defensive spells with an attack, or show me the effectiveness of a spell by having me attack, but that was the extent of our physical exchange in the combat area at least. She continued to press the boundaries of my comfort by ignoring my personal space, and enjoyed it when I would get uncomfortable. Her training was more demonstration and practice, but still I learned a great deal from her.

The normal assortment of open books that were hundreds of years old; tables covered in said books and even older scrolls, and random size, shape and colored stones, all of which I was told would be needed in later training was all moved up against the walls of Master Sam's training chambers. That gave us more room than we'd had, or needed in the past.

"So Jason tells me that you want to know more about the powers of immortals." Master Sam said. I hadn't seen her when I walked into the room but I had learned to not pay that too much attention. She had made it a habit to literally becoming one with the shadows in the room and then trying to surprise me from behind. She put her hands on my shoulders and I did my best to ignore her. "He and I can only instruct you in the ways of imitation since neither of us is or has ever been immortal. However, spell binding can be used to grow wings, heal injuries, and even to improve the body." she said.

I almost hesitated ,but my curiosity got the better of me, so I had to ask. "Improve the body how?" I asked, somewhat expecting to learn how to make wrinkles disappear.

"The wings are the most noticeable changes, but the human body is far from perfect. We have no claws, or fangs to attack our enemies. Our eyes are limited like those from an animal of prey. Our hearing it self is adequate, but the ears themselves could stand a little improvement. Consider your current self the foundation and know that your body will bend to your will." she said, answering as cryptically and vaguely as ever.

Still it wasn't what I had expected. "Are these enhancements permanent, temporary, sustained by your shockhaven, or natural appendages?" I asked, trying to word my question carefully enough so that her answers would hopefully be somewhat less cryptic.

"That depends entirely on your will and how well you're able to express that will." She said. I realized that she meant you would get exactly what you asked for. I should've known this already, given that spell binding was particular that way. In fact I think that was really the main reason behind why she was so cryptic, to teach me to say what I mean and to think before speaking. Or maybe she was so use to speaking to her shockhaven in such vague terms that were left up to the interpretation of the recipient. Either way it was apparent that her speech was directly influenced by her Mastery of the art of spell binding. As I thought about it I realized that it wasn't just her, all of the Masters were affected by their own arts. Master Jason's sight changed because of his advanced haven awareness, Master Miller's body was nearly all cybernetic and permanently encased in his reploid armor, and even Master Chen was permanently affected by his simple mastery of the martial arts. His body was left ridged from years of training, leaving his muscles unable to ever fully relax. All of the masters were forever changed from their Mastery of their own, which begged the question, what was I going to gain or lose when I Mastered all of their arts. However, even as this thought entered my mind, I forced myself to save any further contemplation for a later date. I needed to better understand the extent of my immortal powers before I would fully Master anything.

"So what are some of the other physical differences of immortals, particularly Arch Angels?" I asked.

"Well that depends on the immortal." she began, and I nodded, letting her know that I understood, but still wanted something that resembled more of an answer and she continued. "But in general they're taller than they were in mortal form. Their eyesight and hearing are enhanced. They have increased bone and muscle density and increased tensile strength in their skin. Sometimes their faces change slightly to reflect how they see themselves. However all immortals, no matter how much or little they alter themselves, have slower blood flow even in their mortal form. I'm sure you've picked up on that from personal experience." she said with a wicked smile as she reached for my face. It wasn't unusual for her to touch me and again I tried my best to ignore it. Then I noticed that her fingernails came to a point and were razor sharp.

I instinctively put up a haven barrier that her finger hit about an inch before my face. She pulled her hand back, her smile faded and she was obviously disappointed. Now I was the one smiling. "That was very unwise. I could've had a protective ward in place or even something more offensive." I said. I was bluffing, but it didn't make the statement any less true. The risk of activating a protective spell was one of the reasons that I never touched her That, and the fact that her skin was cold and reminded me of death. I'm sure, at least I think that some of the times that she would pointlessly move aggressively is because she wanted my reflexes to kick in and activate one of her defensive spells. Out of all of the Masters, master Sam was the one that I was most afraid to attack. I could only begin to imagine the havoc that her spells could cause.

She took a few steps back. "A fair point." she began. "Claws are commonly seen on Imps and Damons, although other immortals use them as well. They're like daggers and can be changed in size as well. The add a certain level of lethality to hand to hand combat. So let's see your immortality." she said giving me even more space.

I took a moment to think about what that actually meant to me. I imagined myself taller, my eyes and ears sharper, my body stronger, and with wings that were covered in spotless white feathers. I held out my hand and focused a bright orb of densely concentrated shockhaven energy about a foot or so wide. The orb was solid white and shown so brightly that Master Sam took another few steps back and shielded her eyes from the light.

With a voice of commanding certainty I spoke to the orb of energy. "Ascend to my immortal form!" I ordered. As I spoke I pushed the orb into my chest. My whole body began to shine with the same light as the orb as the changes took place. I arched my back as my wings took shape. From where I pushed the orb into my chest I felt a crawling sensation slowly pressing outward as shockhaven built more cells and arranged them as it worked its way out along my limbs and up my neck. My eyes whited out and my ears started tingling as the changes were almost complete.

"Well now," Master Sam said, taking a step closer and examining me. "You look truly amazing."

I could tell that I was taller as I stretched my arms and wings. I had to be at least as tall as Master Sam who was easily five foot ten. It was when I began to look at her that I started to realize the other changes that had taken place besides my height My vision was sharper, I could see colors clearer and everything was crisp. I could even see the small particles of dust that floated in the air. I'd always known they were there and could feel them in my haven awareness, but to actually see them was something else entirely. Master Sam was still scanning me over silently and I began to wonder what other changes had happened. I reached up to touch my face with hands that felt slightly bigger. They weren't so much bigger that they were awkward, but they like the rest of my body were larger. My mouth was the same and so was my nose, at least they felt the same. My ears were taller by a half inch and they came to a soft point.

Eventually I gave up trying to map out my face with my hands. "Master Sam." I began, and was thrown off by how loud and low my voice sounded. My ears were just a little more sensitive, like my eyes, and I knew that I could get use to both given the time.

"Yes Eathen." she said, and I was surprised that she wasn't chiding me for not simply calling her Sam.

"You wouldn't happen to have a hand mirror that I could use, would you?" I asked. The only mirror that I had in my quarters was mounted to the wall in my bathroom. Master Sam was vain enough about her beauty that it wasn't a question of if she had a mirror, but witch mirror to summon.

"Now Eathen, you know that I do." she said, producing a plane but large hand mirror. It was old and clasped in silver. The silver work wasn't handmade, but it was still far nicer and more valuable then the cheap plastic consumer products of today.

I took the mirror gently in my hand that still felt just a bit too big, and began to look at my face. I no longer looked like the small preteen boy that I was, but instead I looked like a young man just short of twenty. Still though, I looked like me just older and I was okay with that. "Thank you Sam." I said, handing her back the mirror. She took it and sent it off to where ever it was that she kept such things and waved away my thanks as well.

"It was nothing..." she began, before I held up my hand for her to stop.

"It was a thank you for all of this." I said motioning to all of my body. "Without your guidance I would still be trying to grow wings one cell at a time. This is far more than nothing, you have shown me my immortal form. Thank you Sam." I said.

"I'm glad that you're pleased with your progress and your immortal form" she said, measuring me up again. "You might want to get to the armory to see if they can't get you a new set of armor that fits that immortal body, but make sure that you keep the armor that you have now. This change is anything but permanent. Personally I feel that we've made wonderful progress today and I don't have anything that we need to work on right away. So run along to the armory and get some new toys." she said. Even though her tone was mocking, I took her words for what they were worth. It would be nice to get some new armor and recommend a few design alterations that I had in mind.

With nothing more than a respectful bow I left her chambers. I tucked my wings in close as I walked through her door and kept them tucked in as I walked through the halls. I could've reverted back to my normal form, but I was really enjoying the rush that came with that form. I had so many different thoughts running through my head that I honestly don't even remember the walk.
Chapter Twenty-Four

Katelin didn't say much after Eathen finished telling her about how he learned to Master his own immortality. Eathen was worried that maybe she thought he was a heartless bastard for practically forgetting about the slaughter of twenty-four people less than a day after it happened. He wasn't sure if he even had a reason to worry. She was still huddled close, still holding his hands and still resting her head on his shoulder. He honestly would've thought she was asleep if it wasn't for the way that she stroked her fingers lightly across his palm. Eathen took a deep breath and went to lay his head against the top of hers. Gently and affectionately he rubbed his cheek against her hair. He was happy here with Katelin, happier than he'd ever been. He forced himself not to think about how his life here with her was only temporary. Instead he focused on the feeling of joy that he had as the two of them took off into the sunset. The look on her face and the feelings that she radiated were so wonderful and he was happy that after all she had done for him that he could give that to her.

Then Katelin squeezed his hand and when he raised his head to look at her she stood up. She gave his hand a little tug an simply said, "Come on." and pulled him along into the house.

Once they were in the house Eathen stopped, ready to say something or at least ask what they were doing. When he stopped Katelin spun around and put a finger to his lips. Eathen stayed quiet and resigned himself to being led around the house. She led him through the dark house into her parents bedroom, without bothering to turn on any lights along the way. She got on the bed and pulled him onto it with her. That was when she let go of his hand for the first time in hours. She turned her back to him still knelling on the bed and began taking off her bra from under her shirt.

Eathen watched, wondering if he should help, but it didn't take her long and before he was even compelled to ask she had pulled the bra out of her sleeve. "There." she said, turning back to Eathen and dropping her bra off the side of the bed. "Sorry, but those things are not comfortable to sleep in." she said with a smile as she got under the covers.

"They don't look too comfortable." Eathen said, still sitting on top of the covers.

Katelin realized that if she wanted him to make even the slightest advances on her that she would have to guide him by the hand every step of the way. She smiled and thought it was cute, and that it would be nice to have a boy, guy, man or whatever she wanted to call him, being happy with things moving however slow or fast that she wanted. "Are you ready for bed?" she asked, lifting up the covers between them.

Eathen took off his sweater and climbed under the covers with her. he laid on his back and she rolled over onto her side and draped one leg over his and scooted as close as she could to him. Eathen liked the closeness and didn't protest in the slightest when Katelin wrapped her arms around him. Her touch was warm and inviting and unlike the touch of anyone he'd felt before. He didn't know how to put into words how she made him feel, but he had to try.

Before Eathen said anything Katelin reached up and with her and gently on his cheek, turned his head so that they were facing each other with their noses almost touching. Then when he went to open his mouth she slid her hand down to his lips. "Before you say anything, I just want you to know that I had a wonderful time tonight. I'm sorry that you had learn about all of the wonderful things that you can do through such horrible means , but I don't think that it's made you a horrible person. In fact I think that only a strong honorable young man would take responsibility for something that he was ordered to do as a child soldier. A lesser man would blame others and hide form the truth, but not you. I don't know how much my opinion really matters, but the fact that you show remorse and still feel responsible says a great deal about you character." she said. She was rambling and she knew it. "The point is," she said, trying to get back on topic. "I know that you're a good person and there's nothing that you could tell me that would make me think that you're some kind of monster. I like you a lot Eathen, a lot more than I've ever liked anyone else ever in my whole life." she said. She wanted to say love, to tell Eathen that she loved him and wanted to be with him forever, but she was afraid of rejection. She looked deep into his gray eyes and could see the storm of emotions and as they lay there with their eyes locked together she asked. "Do you like me too?"

She was wonderful, Eathen thought. "Yes, of course I do. More than anything..." he began, and was cut short again by Katelin's hand.

"Show me." she said and kissed him.

"I think I love you." he said, and kissed her hard on the lips.

When they finally came apart Katelin put a hand on his cheek and slid off of him until she just had one leg draped over him. "I think I love you too Eathen." she said, kissing him again. They'd known each other for less than a week so she wasn't sure that it was even okay for them to be in love, but she was happy to know that he felt as strongly about her as she did him.

Eathen was trying not to come off too strong or make Katelin feel obligated to say anything, but he was happy that she did, and together they fell asleep in each others arms.
Chapter Twenty-Five

It was odd for Commander Jack Mustove to receive a summons that didn't com with any information. The message simply asked for his presence in the Grand Commander's office, at his earliest convenience. Why Shaw hadn't included the reason that he had summoned him was a mystery to Mustove. Then again, a lot of what Shaw had been up to since the last time they talked, and Shaw decided to expand project Yeagher, was a mystery.

From what Mustove had gathered Shaw had been spending nearly all of his waking hours tweaking the three Artificial Intelligences. He was planing on making them the new Masters for the three new additions to project Yeagher, even though the next generation of subjects wouldn't be ready for years. For the time being though it seemed like Shaw was content tinkering with the three AI's personalities. All the while learning about the abilities that the first Masters had taught the first subject. On the other hand, Mustove had, for the most part, tried to distance himself as much as possible from the continuation of project Yeagher. Because of this, he only knew partial broad plans for the distant future of the program. However, he suspected that the truth of the present was much more disturbing.

The truth was that Grand commander Shaw had been using the three AI's to analyze the training of the first subject. He was looking for the reason that the subject lost his stability and destroyed himself, the lunar base, and everyone and everything inside it. Unfortunately Lunar base bravo's main computer system only sent system back-ups of all it's files every twelve hours. There was roughly four hours between the last update and when the base when dark. That amount of time was a drop in the bucket in comparison to the total length of the first subject. For a little over sixteen years the subject was completely stable. In fact he was more than stable. He'd surpassed every expectation and was continuing to grow as the most powerful, and most reliable, warrior that the GPF had. Now all of that time was wasted and Shaw was going to find out why, if for no other reason than to prevent it from happening again. However, the more he looked the more he saw that nothing was out of place leading up to the incident. There was no indication that anything was wrong with the subject or anything else. The subject was fine and then all of a sudden, boom, and there was nothing left. Shaw was stuck at a loss and was getting nowhere.

Shaw's concentration was broken when the alert of his office door rang out. before he could reach for the controls, one of the AIs projected itself on to his desk. This particular AI's personality was a combination of Master Samantha and Master Jason. It went by the name of Samson and it's projection was neither a man or a woman, but a blend of the two. "I took the liberty of calling Commander Mustove." Samson began, in a voice that could've been mistaken for either a young man or a woman. "I went outside the prescribed parameters of the investigation and found something both, very interesting and very relevant that I thought I should bring to your attention."

Great, Shaw thought to himself. Not only was the AI disobedient, it was now calling his subordinates in his stead. "Thank you." he said to Samson before opening the coms channel to his door.

"Commander Mustove reporting as ordered Sir." Mustove said into the intercom. The door opened and Mustove marched in, coming to stop five paces from Commander Shaw's desk and saluted.

"Relax Commander." Shaw said, after standing and returning the salute. "You're not here on my orders, so have a seat." he said, motioning to the chairs in front of his desk. Shaw was still very upset that the AI had over stepped its bounds, but it was possible that it had good reason. So he decided to wait and see. Besides it was rude to correct a junior officer in front of an audience, and where as, officially the rank of an AI didn't exist beyond its station, unofficially the three AIs that Shaw had created carried the rank of the Masters they were modeled after.

Mustove was confused, but was never one to question a command. He took a seat all to aware of the foot tall hologram standing on the Grand Commanders desk. "I'm not sure I'm tracking Sir." Mustove began, "The message came from your system, so then was it a mistake?" Mustove asked trying not to imply fault. It was rare that there were problems within the system that they used, but more often than not they were the fault of the user not the system itself.

At that point Samson spoke up. "I took the liberty of sending the message through the Grand Commander's system since I have no point of origin in the system of my own that has the clearance to do anything other than direct communication or research."

"So I'm here under your orders then." Mustove said and the AI nodded.

"Think of it as more of a request really." Samson began. "Given that I have no rank technically, and even if I did I doubt that I would out rank you, so this was a request."

Shaw cleared his throat. "Rather than debate semantics why don't you get to the point of why we're all here." he said.

"Yes sir." Samson said and motioned to the wall monitor on Shaw's right, Mustove's left. Since Samson was part of the system he was able to dim the lights, pull up the image and the video that he wanted to show. He began with a still image.

The monitor came to life and Shaw and Mustove took a moment to take it all in. The image was of Lunar Base bravo from somewhere in the outer range of the moon's orbit. The portion of the moon that was shown was nearly completely covered by a bright red dome with a thin red line, coming out and away, at the center of the dome. Shaw was the first to speak up. "What exactly are we looking at here?" he asked.

"As I said before Commander Mustove arrived, I went outside the parameters of our search when no new evidence was found. I expanded my search of all of our data to include any satellite with image recon attachments aimed at or around Lunar Base bravo at the time of the suspected soul explosion of subject Eathen Yeagher." Samson said in a matter-of-fact tone that was somewhere between a bossy woman and a confident man.

"So you're telling me that we have video of the subjects soul explosion?" Shaw said, with a new found vigor. This would be enough information to fill in many of the blanks as to what actually happened.

"Of the suspected soul explosion, yes." Samson said.

Shaw began to suspect that being overly particular with words was going to be one of Samson's character flaws that he was going to have to fix later. For the time being however, he remained silent as the video began, as did Mustove. From the distance of the satellite the moon itself looked like a brownish gray ball, wit a large darker gray spot that marked the base. Samson had done what he could to enhance the image as much as possible, but at some point the ability to enlarge the image over shot the ability to enhance it, and maintain any sharpness. Everything in the video was still for a moment, then four vertical arks of red began moving outward from somewhere inside the base. They looked like shark fins on top of the water moving out and away from each other with an equal distance away from one another. Then four more arches, bigger than the first, bisected the four wedges that were cut into the moon's surface by the first. Then the arches stopped being symmetrical and a red dome began to grow from their center. The dome slowly began to overtake the gray mass that was the lunar base. The room was silent as they watched the destruction and death. Finally a thin red line shot out of the center of the dome out into space and out of view. Then the dome slowly faded, giving a clear view of the crater that was left behind.

The video ended and Samson brought the lights back to a normal level. Shaw was speechless and could only begin to contemplate new ideas for what he saw. Mustove was far less impressed and far more terrified He had seen the after images of the destruction, but to see it actually happening was another matter Mustove had believed in order and discipline. He believed in the Galaxy Police Force and their ability to keep that order throughout the galaxy. He had seen things in his service to that order that shook his faith. This was one of them, and being that Samson had all the knowledge of both, Master Jason and Master Samantha, he saw Commander Mustove's horror and all that it meant.

"Is all of that red light shockhaven energy?" Mustove asked.

"It's a combination of both shockhaven energy and soul energy." Samson answered.

"I thought that using soul energy was a lost art, that soul energy itself was uncontrollable." Mustove continued, while Shaw remained silent still deep in thought.

"What you saw wasn't control at all. However the art of controlling soul energy isn't lost. All four of the Masters were capable of controlling their soul energy in some form or another. I currently have the knowledge, but am lacking in the soul and body aspect." Samson said in the same matter-of-fact tone, that made the AI seem oddly sexless, but at the same time human.

Before Mustove could say anything more, Shaw jumped to his feet and moved to the wall monitor with a sudden burst of speed that was completely unexpected. "The line." he began, out of nowhere. 'What was that line?" he said pointing at the screen.

Mustove could've sworn that he saw the AI smile as it rewound the footage until here was a clearly a red line coming from the dome of destruction. He wondered what could be going on in the vast mind of the AI at this moment that it found amusing.

"That line would be the reason that I called you both here." Samson said. "That line is an anomaly It doesn't act like any of the other energy released at that time. Upon further investigation it doesn't even move like energy either. It's at its fastest leaving the dome and loses speed until it leaves the gravity well of the moon." Samson said, zooming out, away from the lunar base until the line was barely visible.

"Like matter..." Shaw muttered to himself more than anyone else. "I trust that you've checked the trajectory of this anomaly against the rest of our satellites to see if we have anymore footage of it, and to find out where it's going." Shaw said, more as an order than a question.

"I was able to get it's trajectory from the original feed. It passed within view of two more recon units before it was lost due to impact or it simply dissipated. One of the views is worse than the original and doesn't show us anything that we don't already know. However the second recon unit was much closer . The result is this." Samson said and the image changed. they were no longer looking at a thin line. Now they were looking at an elongated oval that was trailing red energy. However, within the oval was a darkened shadow and it had a strangely familiar silhouette.

"Is that what I think it is?" Shaw asked, squinting at the still frame.

"I can't be entirely sure, but..." Samson said, and two lines appeared on the shadow. One line was from head to tail and the other was across its with. The numbers next to each line said that the anomaly was almost six feet long and two feet wide.

"That's not possible." Mustove said, as he stood up and marched towards the holographic projection of Samson. "It's just not possible."

"I would normally be inclined to agree with you, but no other explanation makes any sense. I've gone over the analysis of every piece of carbonized slag that was left over from Lunar Base Bravo and nothing even remotely organic was left. The only thing that I was even able to identify at all was some melted reenforced steal that had come from the outer edge of the base and not a one of them was more than three feet long. And even if the one largest piece did manage to shoot straight from the center, it wouldn't have shielded itself in a shockhaven bubble." Samson said.

Mustove gave up on trying to argue with the AI and turned to face the Grand Commander. "Sir, with all due respect you can't possibly believe this. Nothing could've survived that." he said.

"That is a fair point Commander." Shaw said and reluctantly went back to sit at his desk. "Samson, to my understanding, a person, even an immortal, ends their life with a soul explosion. So does that mean that we're looking at possibly one of the Masters escaping the devastation?" Shaw said, knowing that was even less of a realistic possibility.

"From my understanding of the Masters, none of their bodies could have withstood a blast of that power. Additionally, the shockhaven that is surrounding the anomaly matches the shockhaven of the blast itself. Although you are correct in saying that a soul explosion ends the life by way of complete destruction of the soul." Samson said.

"So then if he's dead that can't be him." Mustove said, almost thankfully. He was terrified of anything that could survive the total destruction that he had just seen.

"That would be true if what we saw was an actual soul explosion. With all the new evidence I'm inclined to believe that is not the case." Samson said.

This time it was Grand Commander Shaw who spoke out. "Then what happened?"

"I can make no guarantees, but I believe that what we've seen was a partial soul explosion. I believe that our subject is alive, or at least he was when he left the remainder of Lunar Base Bravo. He very well could have died from any number of causes since then. Exposure to the vacuum of space, burning up re-entering the atmosphere of a planet. Not to mention he would've impacted moving at more than a thousand miles per hour unless he was able to stop himself. A normal human body wouldn't be much more than a splatter mark after an impact of a fraction of that speed, but he isn't a normal human at all." Samson said. The AI understood the subject more than either of the two Commanders being that it was made up of the boy's teachers. Samson didn't feel any attachment to the subject, but he had to acknowledge that Eathen Yeagher was an extraordinary individual.

Both men sat silent and Mustove shifted his gaze from Samson to Grand Commander Shaw. He was at a loss and was hoping that this lack of certainty would be a deterrent for the Grand Commander and make him give up, or at least rethinking, restarting project Yeagher.

Shaw broke the silence. "What planet did he crash on?" he asked.

"Bifoil Sir." Samson said. "It's a small farming world with a population just under a billion. Given the gravitational pull of the planets that he passed on his flight, different directional winds, and not knowing the exact weight of the subject, I was only able to limit the impact zone to fifteen hundred square kilometers, nearly all of which is inhabited farmland."

"Have there been any reports that would indicate that our subject has been found?" Shaw asked. Samson's hologram flickered as he searched through the random reports from the various agencies. "I want anything that has no obvious cause, anything remotely abnormal." Shaw said, in the gap of the AI's silence.

Samson image became solid again. "There is nothing out of the ordinary Sir." he said.

"Alert me the second that changes." he said. Then as if to put an end to the conversation, he added. "As interesting as all this is, it changes nothing. Proceed with project Yeagher as planned."

Hoping that he might delay the ungodly project, Mustove spoke up. "Should we send a search team to comb the impact zone. I know it's unlikely, but we might be able to recover the initial subject and forgo attempting to recreating entirely"

Shaw chuckled. "There was never meant to be only one subject of project Yeagher. He was suppose to be the first of many in our new line of super soldiers. Besides we have no idea what condition the subject is in. He could have no idea of who or what he is, not remember any of his training and be completely useless to us. Or ,in the worst case scenario, he could still be unstable. In which case transferring him or any added stress and we could wind up turning where ever we put him into another Lunar Base Bravo. In the event that he doesn't want to be brought in, any and all forces that attempt to do so will wind up lost and then the news of the project will be made public. No, I think our best position is to stay uninvolved until we have more information." he said.

Mustove couldn't be sure what was more disturbing. The idea that a ticking time bomb of planet killing proportions might be on a civilian world and they were going to ignore it. Or that they were planning on making more. There was nothing left to say and he wanted to be even further away from project Yeagher if that was even possible. He stood. "Well it appears that you have everything under control Sir. I appreciate the update, but since you've agreed on a plan of action I must attend to other matters as I'm sure you understand. If there's nothing further I'll take my leave." he said, with as much respect as he could muster for a man the he was beginning to think was losing touch with reality and maybe his mind.

"Of course Commander," Shaw said, standing. "Have an enjoyable evening."

Shaw gave him a polite bow that Mustove returned. "You as well sir." Mustove added, before leaving. As the door closed behind him Mustove let out a sigh that he had been holding since he asked to leave. He hoped that this was the last time that he would have to hear about his dark project. He went back to his office, pulled off his jacket that was a part of his dress uniform, threw it towards the coat rack that he had in he corner, dropped into his chair and reached into his bottom drawer. He pulled out the bottle that he kept there for gentlemanly meetings, but he didn't bother with the glasses that he kept next to it. He decided that if drinking himself into a stupor was the only way to deal with this situation, then it was the most productive thing he could do. He unscrewed the lid from the bottle and began his mission.

Shaw stared at the small hologram that was still sitting contently on his desk. "Is there anything else, or have you just decided to take up residency?" he asked. All in all he was very pleased with this new information. It still hadn't explained what it was that had caused the subject to malfunction, but it did open several new possibilities. Even if he wasn't thrilled with the AI's personality, he couldn't deny that it was effective.

Samson straightened up. "I had something else that I wanted to discus. The main issue that you have with an attempt of recovering the subject, is if the subject resists there's nothing that can be done at that point correct?" he asked.

Shaw regarded Samson with a clever grin. "So then, I take it that you have a solution for that little problem." he said.

"I have the knowledge of the skills needed to take down the subject, but I need a body." Samson said, without hesitation.

"Do you have one in mind?" Shaw asked, not sure if this was a joke or the opening of something much more sinister.

"If I modify one of the holding tanks for the next generation's subjects to fit within a suit of modified reploid armor with enough room left over to house some of my core components, I would have the subject's shockhaven well to draw from. With my haven awareness I could find the subject much faster than a team blindly searching. Chances are that he's nowhere near fully recover, so I could offer to bring him back for testing and recovery. If he declines, I should be more than ably to handle him in his weakened state. He's unarmed, unarmored and weak. I kill him then we study his brain and see what we can figure out about the partial soul explosion" Samson said, outlining the plan that he had come up with before calling in Commander Mustove.

"I'm not an expert on shockhaven control, but would one of the next gen. subjects have enough shockhaven to meet your needs." Shaw asked, seriously considering this plan.

"They are clones of the original and their growth has been accelerated almost ten fold. I can have a suit ready within days. Besides, let's say that I'm beaten. We lose one suit and one subject that can be replaced within days not years. That's it, and we gain all the knowledge of how he fights now, what condition his mind is in, and what he plans to do. And with all of that knowledge we can regain some control over the project." Samson said.

"This was your plan from the beginning wasn't it?" Shaw said. The cleverness of the AI was truly remarkable, terrifyingly so.

"It was, yes sir, but before I made the suggestion I wanted you to have all of the information to fully understand the situation." Samson said.

"Why include Mustove?" Shaw asked. Commander Mustove had no direct authority over Project Yeagher. On top of that he had never had any involvement with the project at all before bringing in the report about Lunar Base Bravo.

"I was curious." Samson confessed. "As your second in command he should be involved with all of the secret projects, but he purposely distanced himself from project Yeagher and I wanted to know why."

"And?" Shaw said, wanting to know Samson's opinion on the matter. He too had noticed Mustove's recent distance, and he had his own ideas as to why.

"It seems to me that he has a moral objection to child soldiers, human weapons and soul manipulation. The whole project seems to make him very uncomfortable." Samson said.

"And what about you?" Shaw began, and Samson raised an eyebrow in his direction. "Do you have any moral objections?" he said, making his point clearer.

Samson laughed and it sounded like something far darker and far more sinister than a tiny projection. "There's more than one reason that my predecessors remained mortal, and it wasn't due to a lack of knowledge. If you're looking for wholesome guidance I suggest you find a different moral compass. However, I will say that you've already started a fire and been burned. A lesser man would've given up, but you didn't hesitate going right back to the matches."

"True," he began, "But the goal is worth the risk." he said, with conviction. "Have the suit made and begin the rest of your investigation as soon as you're able. That is all." he added, and with that the conversation was over.

###
About the Author

J. S. Bendle is the creator of the Project Yeagher series. This is the first book in what he hopes to be a ever growing saga that evolves over time. He is an army veteran who was deployed to Iraq in support of OIF 07, OIF 08 and OIF 09. He is a father of two wonderful boys who love to beat up their dad every chance they get. When he isn't writing, or being beat up by his kids, he spends his time with small projects.
Other Books by This Author

This is the first book by J. S. Bendle, who plans on continuing the series. Please visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/projectyeagher for the most up to date information on future books.

Book Two The Short Lived Dream will be available August 2014

Book Three An Unlikely To Form An Order will be available December 2014

Book Four The Golden Witch will be available summer 2015

Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other books by J. S. Bendle.
Connect with J Bendle

I really appreciate you reading my book! I would love to hear what you think of the book. Again Thanks for your support and I hope you enjoyed the book.

Email projectyeagher@yahoo.com

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