It was not a fight. It was a beat down. Jamo was just hammering Alpha every moment they clashed. He could tell Alpha was experienced and good at hand to hand combat, but the difference between them would be counted in thousands of years and as many fights. Jamo’s command of soul manifestation was better. He had grown in size, sprouted 4 more arms and 3 extra heads. He had 360 degree vision and 360 degree reach. The kid had stared dumbfounded at him when he did this, his eyes growing wider when saw the armor flowing on Jamo’s body. He had manifested dynamic armor, as they fought the armor would reinforce the parts where Alpha might land a blow. Every 3 minutes Jamo would knock the boy down, but he just couldn’t keep him there.

He looked at the kid, kneeling on the floor with a smile on his face. Jamo hated that face and hated that smile even more. For two hours now he had been trying to wipe it off and failing. To win he would either have to cause so much pain that the boy gave up or he would need to completely shred the boy’s memory layer. If he’d had his body and his power levels, the latter would have been done long ago. As a ghost, the boy’s connection to the soul sea made the latter very difficult, leaving the former as the optimal choice.

“Its ok, let’s take break. You need to catch your breath and refresh your self. Once you are able we can continue to your defeat.”

Jamo’s ego and anger flared up. He may have lost his chakras and power, but he was still the strongest person in the dome, he still had the most experience, he had the most skill and this runt was suggesting that Jamo would be defeated. Jamo kicked at the boy who tried to block with both his arms. Jamo’s foot connected with his hands, but powered through, the kick threw the boy straight into the air to hit the ceiling of the dome. As the kid fell to the floor and groaned, Jamo’s eyes grew cold.

“You know nothing. You are nothing. But you are lucky. Today I am going to teach you the Dances I know. You are going to experience all the forms and stances. Know that the Dances are the foremost of the fighting arts in the known galaxy. The fighting arts are used to condition and prepare the body to advance using prana and shakti. They have three levels, the Warrior, the Royals and the Divine. Most know and stay at the warrior levels. The Royal level adds precision and finesse, even allowing the use of prana and shakti in some stances. At the Divine level they are all about shaping and using prana in the arts.”

Jamo picked up the boy tossed him into the air and kicked him towards a wall.

“The Dance of the Bear. This is the arts for physical power, brute strength. Its royal level is the Dance of the Tiger. The divine level is the Dance of Narasimha. I have mastered the warrior and the royal. Let’s begin your instruction.”

After two hours the boy felt as if he had been run over by a train, repeatedly and he was amazed. For two hours he was at the receiving end of a series of techniques comprising powerful thrusts, jabs, punches and kicks, which were repeated twice. The power was delivered with immense speed. It hurt, but he focused on Jamo’s movements, seeing parallels to a lot of the techniques he knew but these were at a different level. Especially the royal levels. Precision and finesse. They made a huge difference, elevating the strikes to an art form, the attacks flowing from one stance to the other. He would have loved to be observing the moves from the side, but Jamo had a running monologue for each form and that helped him understand it all better.

“The Dance of the Snake. This is the art for speed and agility. Dance of the Eagle is the royal level. The divine level is called the Dance of Lightnings. Again, I will acquaint you with the warrior and royal levels I mastered.”

The next two and a half hours hurt more than the last. The hits didn’t have as much power, but they were by no means weak. And they came fast, unpredictable, striking key points of his body in ways that made the pain explode.

“The Dance of the Monkey. This is the art for versatility, combining power, speed and agility in a perfect balance. The name applies both for the warrior and royal levels. The divine level is the Dance of Hanuman and I do know it. My master encouraged me to learn all warrior and royal techniques and then commit to a single Divine technique that suited me. I can’t channel prana for the techniques of the divine level, but the forms are still deadly.”

At the end of the next 4 hours, the boy crashed into a wall and slid down. His bones locked and he didn’t crumple to the floor but his legs were shaking. The power and spped of the divine level had been close to the edge of what he could handle. He chose to stand against the wall and pant, pretending to have been knocked over his threshold. He had been waiting and now the time had come for him to make his move. He eyed Jamo stalking towards him like he was a bug about to be smashed out of existence.

Jamo was six feet from the boy when Alpha stopped panting, opened his eyes wide and moved. Jamo immediately attacked but as he saw Alpha’s shifting stance he knew the kid would be able to avoid his strike and close with him. He knew the technique Alpha had applied and left him stunned.

“What..., How...”

It was impossible, what he was witnessing and as he froze he failed to counter Alpha, who immediately turned, slamming into Jamo’s torso with his back, using his momentum to bend and flip Jamo over his head and on to the floor. He then dropped on Jamo, enclosed him in a bear hug and said, “Om”, then rolled ... out of the dome.

Jamo could only get out another “How?” before he was out of the dome’s protection and the pressure of the soul sea came crashing down. He just shut down as his body seemed to transform into a spindle of soul sea mist. The boy pushed the spindle further into the soul sea and then turned to his side looking up and said, “Are you here to say goodbye?”

The ball of mist hovering in the air to his side transformed into a humanoid shape that said, “You are full of surprises. Don’t you want to know why he was surprised?”

The boy shrugged his shoulders, “Now what?”

“The device worked by channeling to that ghost. With the ghost gone the circuit is broken but the kickback will take time to build and shatter the plate. You have 4-5 hrs before you are returned back.”

“Ok, thanks.”

“When did you figure out how to control prana?”

“Before I met you. I had realised that the reason I had my form was due to channeling and molding of some sort of energy or force field to take my shape. I didn't know that was prana. Our fight allowed me to connect some dots and work out how to directly control this energy. The scape-shells are simple energy constructs, working out how to breach them took time but was quite easy.”

“Someone is in a talkative mood.”

The boy grinned. “This is so cool, I just had to tell someone.”

“Why not that ghost?”

“He was the villain. Villains monologue. Heroes just destroy the villain.”

“Oh ho, someone is extra proud.”

The boy just kept grinning.

“I guess you have some final things to do, so I’ll take my leave. Remember they will be able to see what you are doing in about an hour’s time.”

The boy had mixed emotions on his face, but got it in control and smiled, “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet. My aims were not altruistic.”

As the humanoid shape flew to the dome’s edge, it turned back and asked, “You sure you don’t want to tell me your name?”

“As sure as you won’t tell me yours.”

“Ok, then for my final trick...”

The boy saw a grin form on the humanoid shapes blank face. Then the rest of the shape vanished slowly around the grin, with the grin hanging in the air for sometime before vanishing itself. The boy stared at the spot for a while with a frown, then shook his head and got to work.

He entered his mind palace, he had memories to save. The thing with memories is that every time you remember something it forms a new memory, not just refreshes it. All he had to do was recall things he wanted to carry forward into his new life and they would persist through his transition. In his mind palace memories were stored on book shelves, in open and locked rooms and locked boxes. Ever since that discussion on rebirth he had noticed his mind palace was split into two zones, one old and one new. He had since been moving memories of all that he knew about math, science, languages, music, movies, computers, games, martial arts, yoga and similar from one zone to another. The most difficult had been to lock away all the memories of his friends and of ... He refused to even think of their names. He didn’t know why but he felt that carrying those memories would create ghosts that would haunt him. The technical knowledge he was carting over may or may not be useful, but could always be easily discarded. Memories of friendship, love, joy, pain, once they took hold they would never leave him.

The only person whose memories he carried over was his Guru. A lot of what he had become and had learned was tied too closely to him, yet their connection had a quality that assured him it would be fine. He was also working on carrying over sanitized summaries of some incidents in his life, incidents he felt had made him. This was the hardest of all to do and the only thing left. To create a memory from another while not recalling the names and people and his connections with them, was extremely difficult, but he was managing.

Outwardly he sat in front of the other kid’s soul in a meditative pose and waited.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Sage August was happy. He had suffered a lot of setbacks, and there were a lot of what ifs but there was also a certainty about the most critical things.

He had not been surprised when the central crystal of the Soul Body Chakra Mapping plate cracked and then crumbled into dust. The plate itself had then cracked. He had been surprised when he had suddenly lost his connection to the ghost. He was not worried, since the ghost had a soul mark and they could always send tracers into the soul sea to find Jamo.

The Empress had been surprised and scared when the plate cracked. It took a few minutes before her bio-artisans could check and confirm that her babies and their souls were unharmed. They had then arranged to meet in two days to discuss the failure of the ceremony.

The negotiations were a mixed bag. He had known from the start that this project had reached its end. The objective of his visit had been many fold, viz. to concede on the project but use its demise to prevent the Sage’s influence and power in the Golden Sun Empire and its neighbors from weakening, and to gather the soul techniques and sutras that the Empress had gathered. The Sages had most of the capabilities but not all.

With the destruction of the plate and the Empress holding the feeds of the happenings in the dome, the first two objectives were completely lost. However he had been able to get the soul techniques and sutras, probably not all the cold witch had but enough to be worthwhile. She had indicated an intent to share it all publicly anyways.

But what really made the trip a success were three words - what, how and how. The plate didn’t allow for the Sage operating the plate to observe the dome, but a tiny crystal did record everything that happened either till end of the session or till plate failure. The fight between Jamo and the baby soul had been enlightening but the last few seconds before the feedback failure had made the trip worth it - to see a complete form from the lost part of the Tandav, the Dance of the Gods, and to hear Jamo surprised about something in the soul sea.

The Sages had a bottleneck at six chakras. No one in known history had opened seven chakras, not amongst the mortals. Long ago a Sage with six chakras open and nearing the end of his cycle after thousands of years had got together all the Sages together and they had entreated the Gods to get answers. The Gods had responded. It was possible to open the seventh chakra, but for the eighth and ninth they needed to advance their souls. Thus had begun millenia long searches for soul techniques and sutras. It is what got Jamo betrayed and imprisoned. He had made several forays and discoveries in the soul sea, but refused to share them. For Jamo to be surprised by a technique in the soul sea, meant it was significant.

They couldn’t find that baby soul, it would have been returned into transition and had no mark. But they could find Jamo and they would get their answers this time.

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Months after the defeating the Sages, pushing back the Viraaz and strengthening her Empire's influence, Empress Mara gave birth to two healthy boys. The whole empire rejoiced for a full week, Suryadham for a full month.

Mara was holding both boys in her arms, sitting under the triple moonlight, happy. Nal, Nalan’s son was assessed to be fine. His soul-body alignment had come out good enough that he would surpass her. Her other son had surpassed all expectations. From day one she could sense shakti pulses and prana flowing through his nadis. This was unheard of except from the most talented children of the topmost families in the Galaxy. He wouldn’t just surpass her, he could surpass everyone. His abilities were being kept secret, only she, his fathers and her maids subject to compulsion knew of this.

One of her maid’s took the sleeping Nal, to tuck him to sleep in his cot. She kept the other, rocking him in her arms till he fell asleep. As another maid took the baby away she whispered to her child, “Goodnight and sweet dreams, Shiv.”