Transendence

by Jared Teer

  “How are our hands tied? Why can’t we take him out?”

  “We sent in our best warriors, and they were defeated. Any subsequent assaults will only result in further losses for our forces. My one option is the Particle Eraser. This table you see before you is not only a holographic projector, but a weapon as well.” Enoch motioned toward a metal ring, one foot in diameter, hovering above the table. “That ring is the lens of the Particle Eraser. Think of it like a giant magnifying glass whose beam can incinerate and take in even transphysical particles. Any transphysical being on the Oneiric Plane who is caught in its beam will have their molecules rent asunder and scattered across the universe. The problem is, the beam doesn’t just cast dreaming terrestrials from the Oneiric Plane, but would scatter their consciousness as well, leaving them in a comatose state. The ring is only one foot across, but as you can see, that translates to hundreds of yards across on the projection. Thousands of sleeping New Yorkers could be thrust into a comatose state. I can’t risk it.

  “What we need to do is establish dialogue, get him to talk. But, as you just witnessed, anyone who approaches is annihilated.”

  “Let me go,” said Darion.

  “What?!” said Enoch. “You haven’t even completed your training!”

  “I might as well be finished,” said Darion. “I’ve learned a lot under Hughes’s instruction. He told me I would be ready if I won the Hall of Might tournament. Well, I made it to the finals. I think that’s good enough.

  “I won’t just attack him. I’ll try to talk to him. He’s Hughes’s teacher; I’m Hughes’s student.”

  “Hmmm?” said Enoch. “You do seem rather determined, and determination fuels our powers. I don’t like it, but I’ll allow it. Relate to him that you are Hughes’s new pupil. Implore him to return with you peacefully to the Command Center. If he refuses, you teleport back here immediately: you got that?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Darion.

  Darion materialized high above the Oneiric East River and flew toward Kagan. As he approached, he saw that Kagan was hovering in place with his arms folded, looking toward the UN Headquarters.

  Kagan suddenly turned. “I was expecting you … Darion,” he said.

  At that moment, Sky, Ray, Takeya, and Rocky materialized, hovering beside Darion.

  “What the…?!” yelled Enoch back at the Command Center.

  “Darion, we came to give you a hand,” said Sky. “I got my brother, and we found Takeya too.” Takeya nodded to Darion, who returned the gesture.

  “Thanks,” said Darion. He turned his attention back to Kagan. “How do you know my name?”

  “I’ve been monitoring your progress through the tournament. I must say that I am impressed. It pleases me to know that my methods have led to your success.”

  “Thank you,” said Darion. “You said you’ve been expecting me. Well, I’m here to ask you to accompany me back to the Command Center.”

  “I figured as much,” said Kagan. “I regret to inform you that I have other plans, and I won’t be accompanying you at this time. You needn’t worry about Hughes and the others though, they’re simply indisposed.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Darion. “What have you done with Hughes?”

  Kagan laughed. “I like your fervor, young man,” he said. “I can see why you’ve progressed so quickly. First, allow me to introduce myself to your friends. My name is Hans Kagan.”

  “We know who you are, dude,” Sky said to Kagan. “What have you done with my brother?”

  “Your brother, like Joseph, is trapped along with the other aggressors in a pocket universe of my creation. They simply believe that they have been molecularly dispersed in this dimension, yet they are disembodied within my very consciousness—their own Essence now at my disposal.”

  “That’s impossible!” said Ray.

  “Perhaps for an adolescent novice such as yourself,” Kagan replied, “but not for someone like me who gains strength from the most grievous sufferings imaginable.”

  “Look,” said Darion, “just release Hughes and the others, please. We’re supposed to be on the same side.”

  “I am on your side, young man,” said Kagan. “It’s just that sometimes a situation calls for expedient action. I am curious about one thing though … hmm?

  “It would be a waste to displace all of your youthful aggression, so I will afford you the opportunity to expel a bit of it on me. You clearly have no chance against me in my current state, so I will expel the pocket universe that holds your friends … with one stipulation: you must defeat me in a fight in order to have them released. I will fight you all at once. You can use whatever techniques you wish, but I will rely solely on hand-to-hand combat. How does that sound? If you can accomplish this, I will go willingly with you to the Command Center.”

  Kagan held his cupped hands close to his stomach and the black orb emerged. He then raised the humming orb to shoulder level in one palm, where it hovered after he lowered his hand.

  Ray shot forward to grab the orb in his extended hand. Vrrmm! There was a booming, reverberant hum and Ray was sent hurtling backward as soon as his palm made contact with the orb.

  Kagan laughed. “That’s not a good idea, my young friends. The orb repels anyone who touches it with the force of a galactic core.” Ray overcame the inertia a few miles away and teleported back to the line with his friends.

  “My offer, gentlemen?” asked Kagan.

  “If that’s the way you want to do this,” said Darion, “so be it!” He exploded forward with his right fist extended toward Kagan’s stomach. A split second away from landing, Kagan shifted to the outside of the punch, grabbed Darion by the wrist with his right hand, and spun, swinging Darion around smack into the approaching Takeya, sending Takeya crashing to the street below.

  The inhabitants of the Oneiric Manhattan (sleeping terrestrials whose dreams brought them to midtown) scattered from the chaos.

  A sweep to the left with Darion swatted Rocky to the ground, after which Kagan flew into a spin and then hurled Darion into Ray with such force that they were both lost in the blue horizon. Sky attacked Kagan with a series of straight punches, all of which Kagan moved to avoid with blinding speed. Kagan slipped to the outside of a right cross and struck with continuous rights of his own to Sky’s face and gut with such speed that the Supernal appeared to be frozen in place. Kagan stopped punching Sky when Takeya flew back to help, and Sky hovered in place in what seemed to be a catatonic state. Takeya flew toward Kagan with his extended hands pressed in the Praying Hands. As Takeya’s fingers approached his sternum, Kagan flew into a spin, deflecting Takeya past by turning into him with his left shoulder and then blasting him with a back elbow with his other arm. Takeya once again went crashing to the ground below, this time depositing through the roof of a gas station. Sky regained consciousness and struck out with a jab, which Kagan grabbed with both arms in an arm throw, sending Sky crashing into the pumps of the station in a massive explosion. The burning gas sent up a massive black cloud and Kagan landed on the roof of a skyscraper to avoid the fumes. Sky crawled from the inferno, blackened with soot. Takeya smashed through the wall of the gas station and helped Sky to his feet.

  Kagan noticed a rumbling from somewhere below in the building. Rocky was flying upward with his fists extended, smashing up through the floors of the building, and emerged right before Kagan and instantly attacked with a barrage of straight punches and alternating roundhouses. Kagan was forced to shell up with his arms. The force of the blows shattered the adjacent office windows. The little warrior hovered in front of Kagan, his small stature allowing him to attack Kagan with all four limbs, making it difficult for Kagan to defend. The little guy pressed forward, forcing Kagan to hover backward over the building’s ledge in defense. Darion and Ray reappeared and joined Rocky in the assault. Darion approached from Kagan’s right, Ray from his left. Kagan fought more desperately as the two of them approached and shifted back quickly and lashed out with a powerful
right roundhouse that Rocky blocked with his knee but was still powerful enough to send him sailing away. Kagan pulled his right leg back and thrust the heel into Ray’s stomach, sending him crashing down through the window of the twenty-second floor of an office building.

  Darion rapidly approached, but Kagan underestimated his speed, and upon turning his head to the left, Kagan’s jaw was greeted by a right cross. Kagan reeled and Darion pressed forward, attacking behind his swift jab with a barrage of combination punches.

  Believing himself to have the superior boxing ability, Kagan decided to use only his hands against the young warrior. It was a bad idea. Kagan had spent his time in exile augmenting his Essence manipulation abilities, not honing his fighting skills. Darion got the better of the punching exchange and landed a left hook that sent Kagan smashing through several skyscrapers into the distance.

  Darion hovered high above the streets and his friends materialized beside him, Sky and Takeya on his right, Ray and Rocky to his left.

  “Good shot, Darion,” said Sky.

  “Indeed,” answered Kagan from behind them.

  The young warriors turned and Kagan threw a right cross to Darion’s sternum that sent him crashing through a building to the street below. Kagan struck to the side with the same arm and caught Sky across the face with a back fist that sent him spinning away. Rocky threw a right roundhouse for Kagan’s head, but he caught it on his left forearm and bent forward, throwing a cross to Rocky’s stomach while simultaneously thrusting his right heel back into the approaching Takeya’s gut. Ray flew at Kagan with a flurry of kicks that forced him to cover and back away. Takeya recovered and flew in a prone position toward Kagan’s back with his Praying Hands aimed for his spine.

  Kagan shifted downward and Takeya’s fingers drove into Ray’s diaphragm.

  Ray’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped, drooling golden-hinted blood. Takeya regarded him sorrowfully as they hovered and then retracted his piercing hands. Ray plummeted and Takeya made to catch him, but Kagan shifted up, raising the crown of his head into the underside of Takeya’s chin. Takeya fell backward, unconscious, and crashed to the street.

  Then came a resounding boom as Kagan was sent smashing through an office building before crashing into the asphalt headfirst. High above the city hovered a Pugilist golem with its arms folded, glaring down at Kagan.

  Darion hovered above the roof of a high-rise loft. Sky and Rocky materialized beside him.

  “What happened to Ray and Tak?” asked Sky.

  “I don’t know,” said Darion.

  “Who’s the black guy?” asked Sky, motioning toward the Pugilist.

  “Pugilist golem,” said Darion, “made of black diamond, able to manipulate gravitational forces on the scale of a small planet.”

  Kagan attempted to rise, but was smacked by a concussive shockwave that blasted a wide concave into the street and adjacent storefronts, smashing underground power lines and water mains. Every time Kagan attempted to move, he was smacked by another blast. He lay smashed into the bottom of the concave and was then submerged as the crater was filled by water from the broken mains. As the water rose, it made contact with the broken power lines. As if given a jolt, Kagan exploded from the bottom of the pool with a snarl, his fists extended toward the Pugilist. With booms like artillery fire, the Pugilist emitted its spherical concussive blasts, but each force wave was met headon by the rocketing Kagan. Kagan plowed through each force blast with a roar as he ascended toward the Pugilist and then engaged the golem in hand-to-hand combat, assaulting it with a barrage of punches.

  Darion was stunned that Kagan was able to resist the force blasts but knew that he couldn’t waste time on such contemplations. “Here’s our chance! Blast him!” he yelled.

  Darion inclined his hand for a point just above Kagan and the Pugilist and an orb of yellow plasma, thirty feet in diameter, formed above them and descended. Sky and Rocky shot plasma orbs from their extended palms, sandwiching Kagan between theirs and Darion’s. The orbs collided in a thunderous, blinding flash.

  As the flash subsided, Kagan’s smoldering form could be seen descending to a rooftop where he landed on one knee, apparently suffering some ill effects from the blast. The young warriors sought to take advantage of the moment and attacked with volleys of plasma balls from their palms. Kagan turned toward them with a furious look on his face, his eyes burning with golden flame. Empowered by his rage, Kagan swatted and slapped away each of the plasma balls as they neared, sending some sailing away harmlessly into the sky and others crashing into buildings or the street where they detonated with devastating effect.

  Kagan then flew for the three warriors and engaged them with a flurry of kicks and punches. They surrounded him, but his movements and techniques were so crisp that he was actually getting the better of them—bending, leaning, and shifting as he attacked to avoid their shots while landing his own.

  For the young warriors, the battle was becoming desperate. They were taking a beating and were beginning to emit puffs of Essence as Kagan landed blows. Suddenly, a black hole orb the size of a basketball smashed into Kagan’s side, instantly erasing the matter it contacted, gorging a spherical concave in his side that cauterized golden almost instantly.

  “Aaarrgh!” Kagan let out a garbled cry as he fell through a roof below.

  The black orb had been cast by Takeya, having had time to recover while the others battled Kagan. The young warriors looked toward the place where Kagan had fallen and there came a roaring battle cry from inside the building followed by a thunderous boom. The building began to collapse in a cloud of dust as if being destroyed by a controlled demolition, and Kagan flew from the smoke and assaulted Takeya with a vicious onslaught of fists and feet. Takeya and the others barely had time to register Kagan’s emergence, let alone react to his vicious assault. Kagan’s barrage concluded with a punch to Takeya’s sternum that exploded him in a spherical blast. To the horror and astonishment of the other young warriors, the golden light of Takeya’s Essence flew like mist into Kagan’s eyes. Kagan smiled.

  “Nooo!” shouted Sky, and he inclined his hand toward the East River, which began to churn as an enormous form began to rise from its depths—a 500-foot golem of water and ice.

  Rocky shot toward Kagan and exchanged furious blows, and Darion directed his hand toward the street below, which split in a wide fissure, out of which rose a mound of lava, rising and solidifying into a blackened magma golem. Darion and Sky then flew to assist Rocky in the hand-to-hand assault.

  The young warriors fought hard, but it seemed like they couldn’t take advantage of their numbers. They were hindering each other more than anything else, all being forced to pull their punches for fear of striking one of their comrades in the melee. Kagan noticed this and actually made a point of shifting to angles that put them in each other’s way, while allowing him to attack them freely. The golems didn’t help matters either, lobbing large boulders of ice and magma balls respectively at Kagan that the young warriors were forced to evade as well. Kagan landed a smashing cross to Rocky’s jaw, sending him crashing to the street. Then he caught Sky. Darion put up a fight but was blasted out of the sky by an errant glob of magma from his own golem.

  Kagan couldn’t help but laugh. He then turned his attention to the golems. He dove into the ground, and there was a rumbling beneath the earth as if he was burrowing in a circle under the streets. A wide, top-like (flat at the surface and tapering below) section of pavement, buildings, and earth, on which the magma golem stood, was excavated high into the air, hoisted above Kagan’s head in a military press. He tilted the massive land mass and the giant magma golem toppled off onto the water golem with deafening hissing and crackling and an explosion of steam. He threw the land mass on top of what remained of the two behemoths, and that was that. Kagan floated high above the city, laughing boisterously with his arms folded.

  On a street below, Rocky crawled from the rubble of his impact crater and helped his brother up. Darion
materialized beside them.

  Kagan laughed. “I must say, this is turning out to be more fun than I could have expected. You youngsters are certainly spirited. My only complaint would be that you’ve shown me nothing new. Considering the time I’ve spent away, I was expecting to see some new, innovative techniques from you young warriors. Yet, it’s the same old, same old. Ha ha ha … ”

  “Yeah, keep laughing,” Darion said under his breath.

  “He’s too strong,” said Sky. “I’m hurt real bad … real bad. Rocky, I want you to get out of here. Save yourself.”

  “You’re not the boss of me,” Rocky snapped. “I’m staying.”

  “You little brat!” said Sky. “Remind me to kick the crap out of you later.”

  “I have an idea,” said Darion. “He wants something new—then I’ll give him something new: the urban golem.”

  “What?” said Sky. “Urban golem? You mean like a hip-hop golem?” he asked with wide eyes.

  “What!?” said Darion, shaking his head and giving Sky a what are you talking about look. “No, it’s not a hip-hop golem. Are you kidding me? It’s an urban golem, you know, made of the materials and properties of a modern, urban environment. He’s been in exile for decades—it’s time to put him up on the new millennium.”

  “What do you want us to do?” asked Sky.

  “Try to recuperate,” said Darion. “When I say ‘now,’ blast Kagan with everything you’ve got.”

  Darion flew into the air to Kagan’s elevation, though a good distance was between them. “You wanted something new,” said Darion. “Well, here you go.” He extended his palm downward toward the city. Kagan watched with a smirk with his arms folded.

  There was rumbling and electric crackling coming from the streets below. There were buzzing whirs like the sound of an electric lug wrench as a block-shaped convenience store began to rise, the top and bottom panes of its two front windows narrowed like eyes squinted in a snarl. The adjacent buildings within a three-block radius sank into the ground—where they were compacted to add mass and properties to the growing humanoid form. The urban golem rose, its head being the block that was the convenience store. Its body and limbs, an amalgamation of concrete and metal articulating musculature, with piping, electrical wires, and steel construction beams twisting its frame like veins. It gave a screeching, electronic roar as it rose to its full height of 500 feet.