Michael

"Who's this Mirabilis that we are off to see, old fling?" Jessica asks in that way she does that makes everything seem like a conspiracy.

"One of my welcomers actually, she's been at the mountain Awakening as far as I can extrapolate from these two." I say gesturing towards Estergon and Rumeria walking ahead.

"How have you been settling in with everything?" Rumeria asks, they only visited me once since they left me here.

"I've been busy, but you guys could have come for more regular visits you know. I don't exactly know a lot of people around here yet." I say and Estergon shrugs.

"We've also been busy you know." Rumeria says in that lazy complaint prone voice of his. "Any plans for your future yet, your free pass is almost at an end you know."

My turn to shrug, not even sure they can see me. "I was thinking of traveling with Max here, he also has a love for the outdoors and a pioneering spirit."

"You're gonna have to be a lot stronger than you currently are if you want to be able to survive traveling for long." Rumeria says nonchalantly.

"You don't even know how strong I've gotten since you guys have been busy, my taijutsu is improving at a phenomenal rate and my spear basics are solid."

"Yes and your level of skill has absolutely nothing to do with your level of power, you should pay more careful attention to words. I said you need to be more powerful not more skilled.

"To be able travel around on Gaia with even a semblance of impunity you have to have Awakened at the very least. Otherwise you shouldn't travel more than a 100km is any direction and expect to return alive unless you have strong backup." Rumeria says.

"Is everything around us truly so dangerous?" Abdul asks spreading his arms out and touching the beautiful multi coloured leaves around us.

Estergon snorts, I ignore that question 'cause I almost got killed by a goat up on the mountain.

"Abdul bra do you realise that the planet we are walking on is alive and sapient? I mean how strange is that just to begin with, we are literary bacteria on the skin of a sapient sentient being that could squash us if it ever chose to." Max says shaking his head.

He's always going on about how weird it is to be on a living planet and that as soon as he can he will settle on a 'normal' dead rock planet that can't have unpredictable mood swings. He has a point about the weird knowledge that seeps into our minds out of the blue though and I don't know why I seem to be the only one this worried about how susceptible our minds are to outside influence here.

We take a left down to the route going towards the ravine, we all notice the anomaly but no one immediately points it out. These are all my friends so if I'm still fine its fine. Its when we take a right where we should have taken a left that I frown and start to wonder where the heck we're going. But I still trust them, they are all I know in this world, the only people I've properly made friends on Gaia are here with me now.

We reach a small rocky brook and follow it down a twisting path through some trees and down onto a rocky pond.

"Hey Michael." Mirabilis says with her back turned to us.

"Hey..." I say as she turns to face us. I'm surprised by what I see but I don't give it away by much.

"Shit!" Max exclaimed as he looks at her and both Jessica and Abdul frown. I'm not surprised by any of their reactions 'cause frankly she looks hideous.

"You look different..." I say trying to be diplomatic. She snorts and waves my worries away.

"I didn't choose to meet you here 'cause of sensitivities I have about my looks, if you haven't noticed our society isn't as superficial as yours seems to have been."

Max snorts this time, "Easy for you to say, I haven't seen a single unattractive person the entire time I've been here. And how about old ladies with saving breast? Its either you don't have old ladies or noones breast of Gaia sag."

We all look at him after that outburst, that was very random of him and it sort of seems like it's something he's been thinking about for a while.

Estergon starts giggling bringing all our attention down on him. His mysterious, silent type persona thoroughly broken as he puts a hand to his mouth trying to control his mirth.

"What?" Rumeria ask curious about the cause of the laughter.

"Nothing, I just pictured what a person would look like with sagey breasts."

Rumeria snorts, "probably like a hag witch. I can't believe they had so many disabilities on Earth." He says shaking his head in that condescending way that's a mixture of pity and exasperation.

"So no one here looses elasticity on their skin at all, really?" Jessica asks a bit peeved by the discovery for some reason.

Now that I think about it I haven't seen an ugly person since I've been here.

"How are you Mira?" I ask disregarding the comments around me as I walk slowly closer to her, I'm not even sure what I'm worried about.

"I'm well enough, how has life been on at the compound? Anything like the civilization you left behind?" She asks not moving from her position with her feet in the water.

"A lot of things are different some are still the same, but I'm adjusting and I love the food."

"Yes, you earthlings apparently have inferior food on your planet and of course Jonah has been feeding you nothing but stonecumbs, shrumbs, goat and buts. But even that was better than you'd be used to from earth I suppose." She says, sighs then walks to my putting up her hand for me to pull up.

I pull her up and get a better look at her as she stands before me and she's hideous beyond belief. I don't know how I'm not hurling my guts out puking at the sight of her, I don't know how the others are keeping their cool at all.

"What happened to you?" I ask straight up, I'd always get frustrated when people tried to talk around the fact that I couldn't walk. I preferred the people who just asked me about it than the ones that trued to be polite about it but couldn't stop starring, I can't stop starring at her face now.

I can't even pin point one thing that looks remotely aestheticly pleasing about her face, its like looking at a creature from one of the 'wrong turn' movies or the face of someone on a motorcycle hit by a car while not wearing a helmet. Its a thing, her face is a thing and its fascinating because her beautiful voice comes out of that thing speaking the beautiful Linguae language.

"I Awakened, and I wanted you to have a look at my true face before you see me in my illusion." She says breaking eye contact as she walks away.

"What are you talking about?" I ask and she turns to face me before her face morphs into a twisted mix of colours like a painter's colour mixer.

It's not even a second later that her face looks it's normal beautiful self again and I hear Max hurl out a large amount of puke and I hear Jessica spit even as Abdul swallows. I completely understand even as my own face grimaces like iv just tased something sour.

It's one thing to be hideously ugly but its quit another to look like a supermodel a moment later, it's a disturbing sight really. Like watching your grandparents having sex I imagine, not that I've ever seen that thank god. I swallow my own bile that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, I'm so confused right now.

"I am now a tier 1 Awakened and I Awake to Illusions but that's not all I Awake to. I have many other gifts but it seems the price of illusion magic is that it morphs my body into what you saw forcing me to maintain an illusion at all times or scare away children." She says with a bitter laugh shaking her head.

"And to think I wanted to Awaken for so long, dreamt about it since I was a little girl old enough to hold a spear. And here I get illusion magic and a disfigured appearance as my reward for all my hard work." Her voice is mild but there are tears flowing down her face, I honestly have no idea what to say to her.

"How could this even happened?" Abdul somehow manages to ask saving me from having to say something and I close my mouth with relief feeling like shit for having such a strong negative reaction to my friends' plight.

She looks at him and he seems stuck on the spot like a deer in head lights before she takes her eyes off him looking at all of us one at a time.

"It's the ascension pool, it helps push you along the path to power but it takes it's toll on all of us who were born on Gaia. Jonah mentioned it to us before we went up but Estergon and I have always been ambitious for power, any sacrifice was worth it to us.

"And Rumeria here is the laziest Awakened I have ever heard of in my entire existence, of course he will take the easier path to power if it's offered to him." She says pointing at him and Rumeria shrugs not bothered by the description at all.

"So all of you have similar disfigurement?" I ask looking at all three of them.

"The pool showed me the moment of my death." Estergon says coolly before storming away dramatically.

I look at Rumeria who just shrugs and shakes his head. Before my eyes fall upon the now normal looking face of Mirabilis, knowing what she really looks like is now affecting how I see her for some reason by I push that down for later analysis.

"So what else can you do?" I ask and she smile as she starts doing a show and tell as we all walk back towards the compound.