by Ryan Tang
"But now that you're with me, you can go anywhere. You can do anything."
Lews blinked.
The voice was right. He really should have been dead, shouldn't he?
He was alive, and that meant he was strong. In a way at least. He still wasn't strong enough to go back to the Distant Star.
"Okay, you get that now, right? You're strong? You get that now?"
"Yeah."
"Look. I really need your help okay. I really really need your help. I really really really need it. I made a lot of promises. They didn't think they should send me, and I still promised they should. I really really really really need your help."
The excitement was gone. Now it sounded like the voice was about to cry.
"Okay. What do I need to do?"
Whatever the voice needed had to be easier to deal with than the Captain. The Captain was huge!
Lews felt a nudge in the back of his head.
"Swim over there. Swim that way."
"Swim?"
Lews didn't know how to swim. He knew people sometimes swam on Old Earth. It was how humans moved through the water. But Lews spent his whole life on a ship. The only water on the Distant Star was for drinking.
"I can't swim."
A flood of questions followed.
"What?"
"Why can't you swim?"
"They said you could swim!"
"All people can swim! That's what they said! That's what they told me!"
"Not as deep as us, but on the surface! You should be able to swim!"
"Oh god, are we trapped here? We're trapped here, aren't we?"
The voice went silent again, and Lews felt another tickle at the top of his head. This time he recognized what it was.
"Hey! Are you looking into my brain?"
"Stop! Knock it off! Stop doing that?"
The voice was shocked.
"Why not? We're a team!"
Now the voice was petulant. It sounded just like Lews did when he was fighting with Amno.
The boy shook his head. He didn't want to think about Amno.
"And if I can't look into your brain, then you can't look at mine!"
"I'm not looking at your brain."
"You're not?"
"No."
He didn't even know what this thing was. He wasn't even sure why it was in his head.
This time, Lews felt the reverse of a tickle. It was a bizarre feeling he had no way to describe. It was a strange shunt forward and then a pleasurable little tingle.
The boy screamed. His mouth worked silently as the cry rattled inside his brain. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. It was the sort of thing where once you saw it, you could never look away again.
A thick cage surrounded a pool of pitch-black water. Malevolence emanated from the bars, a feeling so powerful Lews could almost see it. A parade of animals squirmed back and forth. Their bodies were packed so tightly together he couldn't tell them apart.
There were fins, shells, tentacles, gaping eyes, and floppy segments. There were sharp teeth, darting tongues, tiny little nostrils, bulbous sacs. The tank bubbled furiously with black, and Lews saw to his disgust that it was filled with waste. There was more poop than water.
"No! No! No! Please! No!"
A woman sobbed and sobbed. She stumbled forward, an enormous plug clutched in her hands. She had a jellyfish sprouting out of her head like a tumor.
The creature struggled desperately, splashing against her hair as it tried to escape. Every so often, she winced with pain, set the plug down, and clapped her hand to the side of her head.
The jellyfish pulsated red. The color flashed brighter whenever the woman sent the plug down, and then she'd scream and lift it again.
She walked forward, her shoulder slumped in a helpless slouch.
The animals swam fiercely but impotently, banging against each other in a desperate attempt to escape.
She placed the plug inside.
A bright yellow flash arced across the water.
All the animals screamed together.
Lews felt a rushing flood in his head.
The pain was horrible, but there was something beneath it.
The creatures stood together.
The voice explained what was happening to him.
"We band together and split it amongst ourselves, so none of us die. Our strength is our pride, and so long as it flows, we are always strong. But it hurts. Oh, it hurts."
There was a strong undertone of satisfaction. The creature felt proud, and perhaps because of their bond, Lews felt proud too.
"When joined to you, we're even stronger."
Lews shifted.
He hadn't even felt it, not until he saw the creatures in the pool and realized what the friend speaking with his voice was.
There was a fish in his arm.
A big fin stuck out of his shoulder. A smaller pair emerged from the side of his forearm. A pair of pale blue eyes poked out from just under his elbow.
"Who are you?"
"I'm a friend from Old Earth. And like I said, we need your help."
Lews felt another nudge.
"Can you swim there? Please?"
He couldn't refuse after what he'd seen, all those creatures stacked up together in the tank.
There was a peculiar duality to Lews, just like how there's a peculiar duality in all of us. Lews was terrified of the Captain and his Officers. He was a scared boy who'd lost too many fights. But he was also brave. If he saw something right in front of him, he'd try to do something.
All thoughts of losing left the boy's mind.
"Can you swim now? Just copy what you saw in the video."
On Old Earth, there were special techniques humans used to swim, but Lews didn't know any of them. He just copied what he saw inside the tank.
He stuck his arms out to either side of him, wound his feet around each other, and then kicked side to side.
No human had ever swum that way before, but it worked.
The boy and his newfound familiar streaked through the night sky. The voice in his head eagerly cheered as the boy continued swimming forward, moving faster and faster to that distant light in the sky.
"Faster! Faster! Faster! Faster!"
Unlike the Distant Star, the light did not move, so it didn't take long before the shape came into focus.
A glass dome surrounded an enormous home that couldn't have been more different than Lews's cramped ship. A massive city floated in the middle of the sphere. The whole thing looked like an enormous snow globe.
Lews wiggled forward. The voice in his head grew more and more excited.
"Yes! Yes! Over there! Over there!"
But once the boy reached the dome itself, he and his new friend smacked right into it.
"Ow!"
The dome was made of impenetrable glass. It contained the city's air, and so it was built so it could never be broken from the outside. If the glass ever shattered, the vacuum of space would suck everyone inside. It would be one of the biggest Shares ever collected.
"What am I supposed to do? I can't get into this dome."
But the fish just laughed.
"Bring me forward."
"Huh?"
"The arm that I'm in. Bring me forward."
The voice's excitement crescendoed.
"This is why they picked me! This is what I'm best at."
"Touch the dome! Touch it!"
To the boy's shock, his hand dipped right through. It was like putting his hand into a cup filled with water.
"Like I said. We can go the places you can't go alone! And my Aspect is Traveler. So I can go places even the others can't!"
"Push harder! Push harder!"
The boy pushed forward. First, his whole hand was through, then his arm, then his chest and then his head.
Soon his whole body was through, and then he was no longer in outer space.
He was inside the colony, and that meant he was affected by the colony's g
ravity.
He began to fall.
"Oh, no. Oh, no."
The boy tried swimming back up, but of course, it's impossible to swim in the sky.
The boy screamed.
The voice in his head didn't notice. It cackled with glee.
"Wheee!"
"Wheeee!"
"We're flying! We're flying!"
It was only until they were near the floor that it realized Lews's panic.
"Oh. Why are you so scared?"
"We're going to hit the ground and die!"
"No we won't!"
The two of them – the two boys joined together – smashed into the floor.
An enormous cloud of dust blew into the air.
Lews stood back up again, hardly a scratch on top of him.
The voice smiled, and for the first time, Lews truly realized his newfound strength.
"Like I said. You are strong with me."
____
Alex paused.
Our pride is our strength.
Pride was a sin, just as ignorance was.
The malevolence from the bars and how the Familiars couldn't escape the cage.
The Spire and its books had become a prison for the goddess.
The supernatural abilities the Familiars gave their companions - what Lews's Familiar had called his Aspect.
The goddess and Falo hadn't joined together, but he'd written a Contract and forced her to sign it. Was that the Aspect the goddess offered?
There must have been some truth in the story. Otherwise, it never would have sliced through the goddess's shell.
And there were other lessons to take from the book as well. Lews's growth from a timid boy into a proud defender of the Familiars. Amno's bravery and desperation to find her brother. Even frightening truths about rulers, like how the Lightning King used the bomb-familiars to control his servants.
The girl nudged her.
"What are you thinking of?"
"What we can learn from the story."
She suddenly trailed off.
There was something there, something in the story. It was one of the lessons, but she didn't know which one. It was something that explained the assassination attempt.
"Alex, are you alright?"
"Yeah. I'm definitely alright."
Alex smiled in spite of the prickling in her mind.
This was the first time she'd sat down and reread her favorite book since the climactic duel against Stock.
In a way, this was the first time she'd sat down and used her brain since the Southern Robotics crisis had happened. Before this, tasks had just piled up on top of her one after the other. Even during the good things, like building apartments or visiting her parents, she'd been running around like a madwoman.
She pushed her mind harder, but nothing came.
She made a frustrated noise, and to her relief, the girl knew that Alex wasn't angry with her.
"What's wrong?"
"There's something in the story, something that explains Stock's escape attempt."
The girl gaped.
"Really? How? This story has nothing to do with him!"
Alex smiled.
"There are lessons in every story. I've seen a lot of people circle the wagons in my time. And I've gotten into some fights with my friends that didn't matter."
The girl giggled.
"Well, we won't know which one it is if you stop reading all of a sudden!"
Alex laughed. The girl was starting to boss her around a little. That was good.
For a moment, Alex considered taking a break to ponder the assassination attempt, but reading was the best thing she could do. There was no point rushing herself. Leanne's diagram was enough to send her head spinning in an endless cycle, and obsessing over it hadn't helped.
The best way to solve the mystery was to put herself in the best possible condition. The librarian turned back to her tablet. The answer would come soon. She could feel the sparks dancing through her brain. She was bad at plotting, but she was good at reading.
____
The screams rained down on the two of them, but of course, the audience could only see a single person. There were more people than Lews had ever seen in his life. The Distant Star had just under 5,000 people, but this must have been 20,000 people or more.
Although Lews could never have seen one, no more than he could have seen an animal or swam in a pool, stadiums like this were common on the Earth Sphere. But on the colonies, there was only the Stadium of Pride. Rows and rows of chairs surrounded an enormous battlefield. The ground was lined with thick white sand that itched at Lews's back.
The flood of voices continued raining down on him.
"A boy! A boy!"
"He fell! Where did he fall from?"
"A boy just fell from the sky!"
He stood up and shook himself off.
When they saw him stand back up, they grew even more frightened. They'd never seen anything like it before. A boy had fallen from the sky, and that was strange enough. But for him to live was even stranger. The whole stadium started shouting, save for a single man who knew what must have happened.
The Lightning King smiled and thought to himself how lucky he must be.
"What the hell? He's moving! He's moving!"
"How isn't he dead?"
Lews stared back at the people surrounding him.
How could there be so many people?
He concentrated and asked the fish.
"What's going on?"
"What is this place?"
He couldn't believe his eyes.
How could there be a building bigger than a ship?
But for once, the voice wasn't excited.
"Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad."
"Why did we land here? That's so bad. So bad. So bad."
"He'll know. He'll know."
"Oh my god. Why did we land here? Why. Why. Why. Why."
"More people. More people. More people. Below. Where I showed you. Below."
"We need to get out of here. We need to get out of here. Move! Move!"
Lews stumbled to his feet, then immediately tripped.
The sand was hard to walk on. It sank under his feet, yanking him back and forth. It filled his shoes, prickling his soles, and making his steps heavier than they should have been.
And it was hard to see.
The stadium's lights were blindingly bright. They floated around the stage in an incandescent ring. The longer Lews stared forward, the more his eyes hurt.
Big green spots started floating in front of him. Lews closed his eyes, desperately stumbling forward.
Truth be told, the lights were fairly ordinary, but for a boy who'd grown up on a dingy and dark ship like The Distant Star, the constant brightness seemed like staring into the sun.
He hit something hard that echoed with a sound every person would recognize.
He opened his eyes.
And that was when he saw the true wonder of the Stadium.
The Paragons.
Real Paragons, not just models.
Fifty-foot tall machines with the strength of a thousand people.
The black and red Paragon's arms and legs were sleek and narrow. The machine wore little armor, and it didn't even carry a shield. The only protection was the samurai's helmet built around the head. The slender Paragon carried only a single weapon, a blood-red sword with a wickedly curved blade.
It was the most beautiful thing Lews had ever seen, until he turned and saw the samurai machine's opponent.
The other machine was black and gold. Blue lightning flared in its hands.
Lews gasped. The color was brighter than anything Lews had seen before, far brighter than normal Eternium. The golden machine looked like it'd been forged from the sun.
The golden machine's pilot had a bizarre voice. It sounded like he was speaking through a bad connection. His voice sparked and buzzed with every word.
"Will you hit the boy?"
"No."
> The samurai pilot's response was hard and certain. Paragons had the strength of a thousand people, and their pilot's mistakes were also amplified by a thousandfold. But the samurai pilot had fought in over a hundred battles. He did not make mistakes.
"I won't either."
The samurai nodded.
"Come then."
The golden machine carried no weapons at all.
It simply stretched its empty hands forward, waiting for its samurai opponent to charge.
The black and red machine leaped.
Lews screamed and dove for the ground.
Eternium sang as the gold machine caught the blade in its hands.
The sound of Eternium in battle is the most beautiful sound man will ever hear. Countless brave warriors have died happily with the music of Eternium in their ears.
But the gold machine did not die.
The samurai pilot brought his sword back again and again. From the careful discipline of his blade to his sturdy and precise footwork, he was every inch a seasoned warrior. Unlike the Captain, who only pretended he was a soldier, the samurai pilot had fought in three of the Paragon Wars, returning alive every time.
His skill was so great that some even whispered that he could swing the balance of power between kings. The planet's rulers had been glad to see his back when he left the Earth Sphere.
They never imagined that one day, he'd find a different lord to serve. A golden lord with grand ambitions and limitless power.
The gold and black Paragon caught the blade again and again. The electrified hands never broke despite the sword's vicious strikes.
The voice in Lews's head screamed for him to start running, but the boy couldn't stop watching. He was utterly transfixed by the beauty flooding his eyes and ears.
The blade struck twice more, and then it was the golden machine's turn to attack.
"Watch this!"
The machine glowed brighter and brighter. The metal in the arms and legs liquefied. For a brief moment, the machine's limbs had turned to geysers.
The hand streaked forward, moving with divine speed toward the samurai pilot's helmet. The strike was so fast the expert swordsman had no time to guard, no time to swing his blade.
One moment, the golden pilot had cried out to the crowd to watch him.
The next, he'd gripped his opponent's face.
A bolt of lightning fell from the sky.
The fish screamed.
"Traitor! Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!"
"Bad! Bad! Bad! Bad!"
"We need to run! Help! Run!"