Nah, I’ll just use the contents of the chapter.

A.K.A Chapter 9

The rising sun shook me out of my meditation and my conversation about food with Ghost. I stretched out on the bottom bunk I had been assigned. It was originally Quakes, but he gave it up, saying that it was too soft for his liking, and went to sleep outside. He’d be fine. The temperature inside the outpost was regulated and no wind could get past the kinetic absorption fields.

I looked around the room, all around me, soldiers, both men and women were getting dressed. I guess living in close proximity got rid of the natural barriers between them and kept them from checking each other out.

Or maybe I was just a pervert.

Not the only one though, judging from all the wandering eyes I could feel. Some of them even turned my way, which was flattering.

Suddenly I felt something wash over me. People have a gaze detection system that lets people sense when someone is looking at you. My [Stealth] allowed me to pinpoint the direction it was coming from.

One guy in particular was giving me a look that was very familiar. The look of somebody who just realized that their sensory ability didn’t work on me. I’d gotten it a lot during my time on the Plains. Good times, good times.

I turned around and gave him a grin. He smiled nervously back. Probably someone who’d gotten used to relying on it. I’d let him away with it this time, next time however? He’d be given a stern talking to.

Speaking of talking to, I should probably talk to James about what happened with Quake last night. I was furious, the audacity of that bitch! That cunt thought she could just pull that shit and live? Not if I had anything to say about it. Which I did, but I needed her alive. Killing her would make more problems than it would solve. I should take it up with James.

The problem was, would he believe me? I probably wouldn’t. Someone you literally met yesterday versus a person you’ve been working with for the last few years? Not exactly a tough decision. Not to mention that these people were all part of a country’s military. Patriotism might make him view us unfavorably as an outsider.

The soldiers began to file out of the barracks, rubbing their bleary eyes and yawning as they did. Probably going to get breakfast. I wonder if they have any pancakes? God, I missed being able to ask things like that and have the answer potentially be ‘Yes’. I got up, made up my bed and with a thought, my clothes appeared on my body.

I ignored the crowded doorway in favor of Wraithing (Yes, I did in fact turn a noun into a verb, when you’re the progenitor of your own species, you get to do things like this. I can also turn it into “Wraithed”. It’s my racial ability and I get to choose the name. My descendants probably won’t like it but that’s okay, They’ll get over it.) straight through the wall.

I slipped into non-existence, leaving only a phantom behind that copied my movements. This was definitely something I inherited from my Ghost side. When they were alive, they were notorious for being tricksters and thieves. The effect they had on the world was muted, enabling them to slip through solids like they weren’t even there.

Inside non-existence was strange as hell. I was in a swirling void of nothingness that threatened to tear me to shreds, to rip something fundamental from me. Cast me into its maw and strip me down to my last atom, annihilating the very idea of me. Had my species not evolved to deal with this directly, I likely would have been erased from all of space-time simultaneously.

I looked around, everything was the same as when I left it. A smartphone with a touch screen lay floating in the void. It was my prized possession and the only physical memento I had left of home. The clothes I had been wearing when I arrived here had been destroyed over time. All the pictures and conversations stored on here were worth more than anything in the world to me.

Various weapons and trinkets I had picked off my enemy’s bodies flew around. Swords and knives of all shapes and sizes drifted to and fro, my power anchoring them in place, ready to be materialized into my waiting hand. The clothes I had stored were all in various states of wrinkled messes. I should take advantage of the amenities here and get them ironed. Flaring your power might get rid of grime and odor but it did nothing for the physical condition of your clothes.

My vision was split in two. Somehow, I was able to view the physical world and the void simultaneously, they paradoxically overlapped each other and yet remained separate. It was seriously useful and helped stop me from rematerializing inside of solid objects, which wasn’t a huge problem unless my entire body was in it. I completed my step through the wall, shunting air into the void as my matter replaced it, where it was promptly ripped to shreds.

The sun was shining brightly overhead, not a single cloud in the sky. The forcefield covering the compound did its job. There wasn’t a single drop of dew on the grass in the compound. Basking in the sun, my energy highlighted Quake, still asleep, curled up on a concrete path. Following the path took me behind the barracks into a small secluded area with a few industrial sized garbage bins. Ah, there’s my boy.

Looking at him huddled on the ground made me feel kind of bad. Did he get lonely? Maybe I shouldn’t have stayed inside last night. He was probably uncomfortable sleeping around so many people, especially ones who could talk and think like he could. He probably didn’t feel safe, not that I would let anything happen to him, but still. Instincts could be a powerful thing, regardless of knowledge. I resolved to sleep outside with him tomorrow.

Now?

Breakfast.

I leaned over sleeping beauty. “Wakey wakey Quakey~” I sang into his ear.

He exploded into action, drill extending like an oversized spear to skewer me. I swayed to the side, having expected him to react like this. Maybe this was why he didn’t sleep inside.

He turned, launching a vicious swipe with his claws at my face. I reacted by side-stepping the blow and grabbing his outstretched arm with my left hand and the back of his head with my right. I then proceeded to gently introduce his face with my knee. That seemed to startle him out of his ‘attack mode’.

“Who’s… Oh it’s you.”

“It’s me.” I agreed.

He looked around and took a deep sniff. He scrunched up his nose and wiggled it. Very adorable. I tried and failed to resist the urge to pat his head. He leaned back in annoyance.

“So, you sleep alright last night?” I asked. I kept a close eye on that Gillian bitch last night. Didn’t want her anywhere near Quake again and if I felt her try something then I would retaliate in kind, consequences be damned.

Quake looked around. “Fine, it’s a little weird sleeping in this bubble, no airflow. Whoever is making it must not need sleep like you.”

What?

Oh! Quake had no idea what technology was, did he?

Shit. How do I explain what technology is to someone with only the slightest idea of it? Seriously, I barely knew how a computer worked, only that playing games on it was fun. Ah crap, I was taking to long to respond. I needed more time. I dived into my mind and came face to eye with Ghost. He gave me a flat look.

“Why don’t you just ask someone who works here to explain it?”

‘I’d rather not let them know about our ignorance on the subject, you already know why.’ I replied back.

‘I don’t think your paranoia is fully justified.’

‘What do you mean it’s not justified? I’m literally waiting to for them to try and kill me.’ I retorted, some heat entering my voice. I didn’t like where this conversation was going.

‘That’s not what I meant and you know that.’ His omni-directional voice sounded a little disappointed. ‘I mean your distrust of other people. You’re going to travel to a city once this expedition is over, aren’t you? Let’s say hypothetically, that you settle down in this city tomorrow, or that you magically appear on earth. What then?’

His ‘eyebrow’ raised.

‘Will you continue to avoid meaningful relationships? Will you shy away from others, constantly waiting for others to hurt you again?’

Rage coursed through my veins. During my time under the water beneath my feet, he had seen my memories like I had seen his. He knew what Alva and Yasha did to me.

How they hurt me.

I loved them.

I hated them.

I didn’t know how to feel about them.

‘I will start trusting other people when they give me a reason to trust them.’

Ghosts reply was instantaneous, like he had seen this coming.

‘So, Quake doesn’t count as people to you? Did you only allow him to travel with you because he’s not human?’

‘Bullshit!’

The darkness around us shifted. His voice turned caustic.

‘Bullshit, is it? Prove it to me then. Prove to me that you can trust others because of who they are, not what. If not for your sake, then for Quakes.’

‘Fine then. I’ll put my faith in these guys, but you’re going be disappointed when it backfires.’

‘We’ll see.’

I let out a hmph and pulled myself from my mind. That guy, I swear I should evict him. Leech doesn’t even pay rent. Grumbling to myself I turned to walk to the cafeteria.

“Uhhh, Jeck? Are you okay?” Quake cautiously glanced up at me.

Oh right, somehow, I completely forgot about this. I quickly plastered a smile on my face.

“Yeah, I’m fine, why’d you ask?”

He sounded concerned. “You just felt really angry there for a split second. You, uh, wanna talk about it?”

“I’m…” Was I fine? Was Ghost right? Was I really only friends with Quake because he wasn’t human? Because he was the only person who hasn’t tried to kill me? He didn’t deserve that. He deserved the truth.

“I’m.. a little on edge I guess.”

Baby steps.

I felt the warm hum of approval in the back of my mind. Oh piss off you wanker.

Quake nodded, relieved. “I am too. Gillian being out there puts me on edge. I don’t like it. Every instinct is screaming at me to annihilate the threat.”

I patted his head again and this time he didn’t try too hard to push it away.

“Me too buddy, but we can’t act until she does. Plausible deniability, you see. Once she makes her move, I give you full permission to retaliate anyway you see fit.”

He frowned. “Won’t that just bring the rest of these people down on our heads?”

I smiled reassuringly at him. “Don’t you worry about that, just keep your wits about. If push comes to shove, I’ll deal with them. Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

A worried eye was cast my way but he nodded.

“Now, you mentioned that forcefield…”

It was a long conversation, one that took all of breakfast, fortunately, the tech guys seemed eager to explain how it all worked. Maybe some of them weren’t all that bad.

***

I looked around. My fellow soldiers were milling about the cafeteria, intrigued by the conversation between our mysterious guests and some passing techies who just finished the night shift. I munched absent mindedly on my bagel. Egg, butter and bacon, couldn’t beat it.

I chanced a glance over at the two newcomers. I wasn’t sure what Hughes was thinking, letting two complete strangers into the base. Especially two as strong as these. I chanced another glance over at them.

“Hey Hiro, what’s up?”

“Hmm?” I glanced up, one of my fellow guardsmen, Terry, a tall man who was one of the Overseers personal guards, some of the strongest people in the compound. Currently about 10 levels beneath me.

“Oh, nothing, just enjoying the show.” I casually remarked.

He “Ahh’ed” in response. “I was one of the people on rotation when Hughes let them in. We had a bit of a trouble when Jeck went missing off the cameras. Turns out he has some kind of anti-sensor power. I’ve never seen one that worked on cameras before.”

That made sense. I tried to Observe him this morning to check what level he was. Normally Observe let me see basic information about the target. What level they were, name, HP, etc, but I couldn’t see shit when I checked out Jeck.

Literally, I normally get a message saying ‘Observation is prevented by X.’ but I got nothing. It didn’t even register as a target to work on. That worried me, and ticked the System off too, if the way it immediately assigned me quest to get rid of him. I wasn’t taking that risk, especially on an unknown quantity like Jeck.

“Oh really?” I said, feigning interest. I wasn’t all that interested in making too many friends around here. I was a loner before, and not really good at my regular duties. I only joined the military because it seemed like easy money after dad’s inheritance ran out. Stupid man, could’ve had the decency to work a little harder and make some more dough before he bit it.

Then the System came into my life and suddenly I started getting good at things. It quantified things into levels and assigned experience points for completing ‘Quests’. A few chores done could translate to a few hours of combat practice. You bet your ass I took advantage of that. Now everybody was taking notice of me, drawing attention my way.

I hated them for it. What was wrong with me back then, huh? People only want me now that I’m useful to them. Typical leeches. Trying to climb the social ladder now that I’m better than all of you. Of course, they don’t know by how much.

Whatever. I’ll be out of here once we finish the expedition tomorrow.

I pulled up the quest I was given.

Quest!

Complete the expedition tomorrow and return home safely.

Rewards:

5000 EXP.

2 skill books

Seed of the crown (1/5)

$50,000

I was almost drooling. 5000 exp? That was almost double what I had accumulated so far. The ‘Seed of the crown’ confused me. Was that the source of the power that Nuvalt was after? Could I snatch it and run? Would I become a king if I found all 5? I’d take the opportunity to grab it, if one presented itself. If not, there was 4 others out there for me to claim. A ding from the System caught my attention.

New Quest Available: Become a King!

Follow the instructions given in the Quest log to have chance at ruling your own personal kingdom.

Rewards:

The Crown of the King of Courts.

1,000,000,000 EXP.

Access to the Elven Library.

Unlimited money.

I slammed my finger down on the accept button as fast as I could. My heart started beating at four times the speed it did when I saw the previous quest. I had my plan. Complete the quest, get back safely, then sneak aboard the first train back before Gillian can enact whatever psycho plan she had in mind.

She almost got me with her Idea Pacemaker, a pat on the back for completing a drill faster than normal and I didn’t know anything was wrong until a warning screen popped up. Luckily the Systems Mind negated any mental effects.

“Yeah, crazy stuff man.” Terry glanced over to the now dispersing crowd. “Oh hey, I think they’re going to the sparring field. They’re supposed to be going on the expedition with us. Let’s go check it out.”

They were heading on the expedition? Maybe an accident could be arranged? I mentally brought up the Quest to kill Jeck. My finger hovered over the ‘Accept’ button as I weighed my options. I decided to take it. If I succeeded then good, if not, well, I never intended to take the quest in the first place. There’s no penalty for failure on this one, so if I failed it’s no skin off my back.

Time to see what these strangers could do.

***

I walked over out the cafeteria doors and out onto the grassy field of the compound. Across on the other side was a simple dirt field with a metallic outline. I looked at it curiously. The energy it gave off was the exact same as the forcefield above our heads. Must be to prevent things from getting out of hand in a spar.

One of the scientists ran over the wall of the settlement and started to fiddle with a small panel sticking out of it. He turned and gave us a thumbs up. I nodded and leaned down to Quake.

“Remember, take it easy, we’re just loosening up for the trip tomorrow.”

He looked out over the assembled crowd full of soldiers and lab workers whose shift hadn’t started yet. Eager for entertainment, or something to break their monotonous routine, they mobbed around the barrier that sprung to life at the flick of a button.

Walking over to the other side of the barrier, I turned and faced my buddy. Bending my knees and bringing my arms up into a fighting stance, I called out to the crowd.

“Count us down. From three.”

They all grinned and began yelling in unison.

I locked eyes with Quake across the field. We both knew how this was going to go.

“THREE!”

We shared a smile.

“Two- “

The countdown fell short as me and Quake disregarded it entirely. You never fought entirely fair if you could help it. Sure, maybe in a non-fatal duel for honor, you could adhere to gentle-mans’ rules. Not out on the Plains though, besides, this was to keep our wits sharp. The metaphorical whetstone to our sword.

I took a lazy leap at Quake and slammed my fist down onto the space he had just been occupying. He leapt back and bounced off the forcefield behind him, slashing with his claws, much slower than our normal spars.

Good. I’d prefer our capabilities remain unknown if we could help it. I ducked under his claws Matrix style, which drew many oohs and ahhs from the crowd. They were impressed by this? It must be awfully boring if a simple spar is the highlight of your day. Instead of returning to my feet, I threw my hands backwards into a handstand, kicking out at Quake while I was mid-flip. He yanked his head back and swung his tail around and launched it like he did this morning.

I bent my elbows and shoved myself away from the ground, propelling me over the drill and into the air. I landed on the cool metal and lifted my foot to run down it, like I had with Big Ball when he attacked me. He must have anticipated it, the moment I did, the drill began to rotate. This wouldn’t have been a problem as I had no trouble sticking to any surface I wanted to, but there wasn’t enough space between the drill and the ground to let myself be carried by it. I quickly jumped off it, diving at Quake with an outstretched fist. He smirked at me and I realized why a second later. He pulled his tail back, sending the drill flying at me once again. I couldn’t dodge in mid-air.

Clever.

I wraithed in mid-air. The flying projectile passed through my torso and hit the forcefield. I hit the ground and rolled back into a crouched position. I batted a stab away from my chest and retaliated. We continued this little game, exchanging, blocking and parrying blows from one another until we both grew bored. Anymore of this and we’d inevitably start escalating in power. We both took hold of the opportunity we presented to each other and finished our ‘fight’ in a stalemate. I had my hand knifed just before his throat while he had his claws just under my chin. The crowd clapped for our little display and felt the same damn feeling wash over me from this morning. I’m not gonna hurt the guy, but I am gonna scare him out of his damn mind.

***

I froze up. I didn’t mean to use Observe on the man in front of me, it was just muscle memory whenever I saw something interesting. I looked at Jeck to see if he was looking at me. He hadn’t turned around from where he was doing a stupid little bow in front of the crowd. I glanced at the screen that popped up, surprised that one did show up. That didn’t happen this morning. What could have changed?

Jeck

Species: Wraith.

Level: It doesn’t matter.

What the hell?!

HP: Listen here boy.

Oh god.

Basic info: You’re going stop using that power on me if you know what’s good for you, got it?

Oh fuck.

I slowly looked back over at the sparring arena, only to find Jeck staring directly at me with his terrible purple eyes. They terrified me, promising to fulfill whatever threats he made. The worst part? They slowly slid off of my face, to my right. I followed his gaze.

He was looking directly at his own status screen. He carefully turned his eyes back to me and mouthed ‘Cut it out.’

I gulped and nodded.

Seemingly satisfied, he turned back around and started talking to his little rat partner. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

I was not looking forward to tomorrow’s trip.