He transported them to the continent of Nezma, a desolate land currently devoid of any sentients and larger lifeforms by design. There were small birds, other lesser animals, and insects, yet even they were scarce. There were kilometers of mountain, rock, and many dormant and active volcanoes and planes of ash and waste over many kilometers.
This was a place to unleash destruction, if need be, on an intense or wide scale, similar to the one that existed on Tae’ha. The Navy and Marines also came here to test even their largest, most devastating weapons.
Large stretches of enormous craters dotting the landscape attested to that.
Hollowed out under an entire mountain range, there was also an entire underground dome set in the very bedrock, the largest of its kind in all the known galaxy, simply called, the Arena.
There the entire underground complex was formed to trap and contain all forms of Cosmic energy in abundance. Only the highest level adepts who could transform into energy forms could survive and train there.
Master Jo had his own energy form, and when they went there to practice, Naero transformed automatically into one of her energy forms as she entered within.
It was like swimming within the Cosmic flows themselves, like moving through a gigantic Cosmic battery. Instantly she was forced to fight off the hungry desire of her own Dark beast to feast upon all of that intoxicating power and use it to break free.
Master Jo cautioned her. “This place will prove to be quite the paradox for you, Naero. I can sense your turmoil. Here you can channel and make use of all the energy that you could ever want, and yet all the while, the allure of all of that power will constantly threaten to overwhelm and destroy you.
“Here you shall be tempted to your very limits as you struggle to refine and perfect your abilities and master your control over them. Such efforts bring their own severe risk, and you will constantly endure being an intense danger to yourself and everyone else on the entire planet. Do you accept these challenges?”
Naero bowed her head slightly. “I do, High Master. I must gain control over my powers and abilities, before they consume and destroy me, and many of those around me whom I hold dear. If I do not try, such will eventually be my fate.”
Master Jo waved his hand. Before them, three naked, faceless humanoid opponents took shape: one red, one blue, and one gold. They were superb athletic specimens. The red one was vaguely male, the blue one vaguely female, and the gold one indeterminate, although on visual inspection, none of them possessed any overt genitalia.
She tried a quick scan of them and sensed nothing. They were not alive. Did they even exist?
Naero went straight up to the golden one and attempted to touch it and use biomancy or teknomancy to scan it.
“Master, what are these things? Holos? Robots?”
The thing wheeled and struck with astonishing strength and speed. A sweepkick knocked her back. Naero quickly flipped and recovered, assuming a fighting stance.
Master Jo smiled. “They are the latest training partners: psyonic constructs. They are similar to replicants, but they are formed psyonically, at will. They were designed for the highest level adepts, Naero. Those such as yourself, Janner, Khai, and High Master Gaviok. Perhaps even your oldest daughter and your other children one day.”
“Let’s leave my children out of this for now. These things feel solid enough. They hit back like a skilled opponent. Amazing.”
“Yes. But they can only be formed here in the Arena and a few places on Nezma where the Cosmic energies are equally focused and intense. And unlike training against another living adept, you don’t have to worry about hurting or killing them. They are not alive. They are simply energy, constructs, directed against you by my mind. You don’t need to hold back. You can go all out against them.”
Master Jo waved a hand at them, and they shifted shape and size as he spoke. “I can form them into anything I wish by the power of my mind. They can be tiny, or gigantic. They can switch to any known form of attack or technique at will.”
Naero watched various weapons shift and meld in their hands. They could make use of any known form of armor, shielding, weapons, or tek. They could use any psyonic talent.
Suddenly the three became three hundred, assembled across the Arena.
“They can be one, and they can be many. Prepare yourself, Naero. When I said we were going to challenge you to your limits, I meant just that. This tek was originally design to help train Khai to become the Mystic Enforcer, and then your brother Janner and Master Gaviok, but it has since been modified and upgraded to deal even with you.”
Naero’s felt her own eyes twinkle. She loved a good fight, a good challenge. She loved it like the breath of life itself. Other than the enemy, who were always trying to murder her, there were only a few persons she knew in the galaxy, such as Baeven, whom she did not have to hold back against.
If Master Jo was correct, this was going to be both dangerous, and a helluva lot of fun.
“Bring it!” Naero Amashin Maeris almost snarled through her trademark half-smile.
“When do we begin?”
Master Jo grinned back at her. “Right now!”
Red came at her shooting energy blasts and beams from his hands. Blue used a 150 millimeter energized jo staff, and Gold used energy blades.
Naero fought them across the Arena all throughout that first week.
It was a thrilling joy not to have to hold back against them.
She could splatter the constructs with massive punches, rip them in half with kicks, and crush and obliterate them with sonics, with eye beams, and all manner of energy effects.
Master Jo would just as quickly reform the constructs and send them at her again in new combinations of threats and assaults, surprising her with different types and increased numbers out of nowhere.
He did everything he could with the constructs to overwhelm and overtake her that he could.
She practiced all of her skills and attacks, every one of her techniques and combinations of those techniques. She continued to explore and expand the full range of her powers and abilities.
Naero also suffered serious wounds of her own, and spent most nights using biomancy to regenerate herself for the challenges of the next day.
Each week that went by, Master Jo stepped up the threats.
He began to give the constructs some of Naero’s own powers and abilities. The battles grew fiercer and more deadly.
At one point the constructs closed with her and nearly slew Naero. In her response, her Dark beast nearly broke free.
Naero barely tamped it back down, allowing her partial Dark beast form to emerge as a release valve.
Master Jo increased the size and abilities of the constructs in an attempt to compensate.
The battles increased in magnitude.
Suddenly they faced another danger. Time after time, Naero increased her powers to such levels that she was at risk of either unleashing her Dark beast completely, or reaching critical mass and exploding, potentially taking out all of Oorrii, or at least a good chunk of it.
She could not release her energies fast enough, as her powers expanded exponentially, threatening to annihilate herself and everything around her. She had fought that same problem ever since she could channel energy.
Finally, Naero sought help from every source available to her. One of the keys came from the KDM.
In the end, she was able to configure a way to shunt and store Cosmic energy directly into the flows of the Astral Plane interdimensionally.
The Astral Plane was in a sense, an entire universe of proto-Cosmic energy all at once, waiting to act. Naero could use it as an outlet to release energy, if she took in more than she could control.
Naero continued to become one with the flows of Cosmic energy throughout the universe and its interactive dimensions. She continued to expand her mind and her awareness. She understood the complex interrelationships more and more. The various dimensions were all paradoxes. They were
separate, and yet they interacted with each other in a myriad of important ways. They did affect each other.
And the enemy had found a way to cheat the very laws that bound them in their eternal prison. They were using dimensional energy to slip out into the Astral Plane and through it, to bend their will even into the Prime Material Plane itself.
She began to see how the enemy tracked her by her energy traces and signatures. She had not been attuned enough before to see it. When she startapped and expanded her energies without containing or shielding them properly, energy flooded out all around her in great quantities. Advanced beings with ancient knowledge could not only detect those flows of energy, but capitalize upon them as well.
Naero still didn’t know how to fully stop them yet, but at least she could perceive the problems involved, and in what directions she needed to keep exploring.
The evolving matches with the psyonic constructs in the Arena kept her hopping.
Then one day, Naero emerged into the Arena, and Master Jo smiled at her like never before.
“What the hell are you up to today?” she asked, backing away slightly.
“Something new, taking into account all that has been gained from observing you and your astonishing powers.”
“So what is it?”
The three constructs took shape, slightly modified.
They all looked just like her.
“That doesn’t make them me,” Naero said.
“As close as I can imagine them to be,” Master Jo told her. “Get ready for an entirely new level of competition.”
Naero smiled and went straight at them.
12
Naero rose to the challenge to battle the new improved constructs, tailored more and more to be just like herself.
Most of the time she still won, but the damage she took also increased. Sometimes she required days to regenerate from the fierce combat sessions she endured.
One time, Master Jo had to stop the match, step in quickly, and save her from dying. Eventually, she was going to be unlucky, if nothing else. The factor of raw chance was always involved when fighting at such extreme levels.
While Naero recovered, she woke up one day on The Xanadu, the starship that she had ordered her reps and fixers to build.
Not only that, but to her great wonder, Khai and Sharrah appeared, bringing the children to visit her in Medical.
Naero burst into tears at such a happy surprise and held her children to her, ignoring her pain as she repeatedly kissed them.
Khai could still wrap his enormous arms around his entire family and hold them close.
“How did you manage it?” she asked. “What about the Time Dilation? The kids?”
Khai shrugged. “We wanted it to be a pleasant surprise, once you got yourself situated. I convinced the Mystics and Intel that this was important. You need us, our presence and support. What’s three years? At least we’ll spend them all together, while only three months passes on the outside. They can do without us for that long. Janner and your uncle said they’d do their best to keep an eye on things while we’re out of the mix.”
Naero stared up at him, wiping her eyes. “I love you for doing this, Khai. I couldn’t be happier. You always seem to know just what I need. Thank you, my heart. Haisha! How I’ve missed you all, and you’ve been hiding here all the time?”
Khai grinned. “Just waiting for the right moment. I brought Sharrah and the team, and replicated the Nursery on board The Xanadu.”
Naero called out to her medteks on hand. “Hey you guys, get with the biomancy. I want a full recovery and pronto. Let’s make this happen. I have things to do, and people to see!”
*
Having her family with her gave Naero increased hope, support, and encouragement as never before. With them to stumble home to every night, she continued to work very hard and make good progress on many fronts.
Seeing her children daily for almost three years straight was going to be a joy she had never known. Naero loved it. And raising their children together deepened the love between her and Khai. Everything in her life just seemed to come together and mesh.
She could bounce ideas off of Khai, discuss them with Master Jo and Om, or go deep within herself to go over matters with her Kexxian counterpart, Orean.
Together, they all determined that she would develop greater control over her powers and abilities and even expand them, once she found and learned to master her on-the-edge center. This would be her own personal harmony, of all the forces and powers that roiled inside of her.
It was up to her find that and sustain it.
Taming the mess that was inside of her was the real trick, just as difficult as the never ending task of trying to control her Dark beast. Most likely, the two we’re going to turn out to be related. The issues were definitely a very deep part of her own existence.
The first year passed quickly, and she learned all that she could learn through perfecting her combat skills and Cosmic powers and talents. Yet even Master Jo said that were many paths to Mystic wisdom and enlightenment.
Master Jo became adamant that a study of shapechanging would provide her with many opportunities to understand herself and the universe further. Shapeshifting was a Mystic ability Naero did not actually possess yet. She had mentally transformed into a Kexx within her own mind, and the skill was closely related to biomancy and replicating.
By now she was the foremost expert on replication.
Thus in the second year of her Change Wisdom training, she would focus on shapechanging.
Tess Fae, their best shifter around, would work very closely with Naero.
There were many dangers involved. She was warned that pain and injury were quite common–including mental agony due to shifting to and from many forms and different neural nets, structures, and patterns.
“We’ll start with the other sentient humanoids,” Tess told her. “They’re the closest to us physically and mentally. You don’t want to start right off with something far removed from your current lifeform, like an animal or an insect or such.”
“How about just a regular lander?” Naero suggested.
Tess nodded. “An excellent place to begin. Ramorans, Besh, Silesians, Piettos, Naivatch, and even Matayans would all be good genetic choices. We have enclaves of them all on Oorrii. We can study them with biomancy before you make the attempt.”
Naero laughed for old times sake. Haisha, transforming into a Matayan. What would Emperor Ellis say?
Yet in the end, they chose standard, Old Earth strain humans, close to Naero’s genetic markers.
They took a small courier ship and visited the proper enclave and performed biomancy scans and studies of several human women Naero’s own age.
Shapechanging into the male form or someone of a different age range involved other unwanted complexities that she did not need to deal with at first.
Tess cautioned her. “We’ll keep it simple for your first transformation, N. The first one is often the most difficult, and usually very painful, going back and forth. Sorry. That’s just the way of it.”
Naero grimaced and sighed. “I understand. It would help me if I mindlinked with you and observed you transforming a few times. I’ve learned many psyonic powers that way, by observing someone who already knows how to use an ability. I can see the types of energies at work and gain an understanding of the paths those energies take.”
Tess seemed highly impressed. “I don’t know of anyone else, except for perhaps the High Masters, who can do anything close to that.”
A young human woman their age, a lander from one of the enclaves, volunteered for the experiment. Tess had her brought into one of the Mystic medical clinics. Behind closed doors she had the woman sedated on a medbed. There was no risk to the host.
Naero linked with Tess and studied the first transformation as it progressed.
Tess in her turn was an expert. She linked with the woman by touch and used biomancy in very adept, specific ways to cha
nge herself into a copy of the test subject in almost every facet.
Even biomancy and the most advanced genetic and medical scans showed her to be an exact duplicate physically.
The only slight differences were psyonic, and only a handful of sentients in the galaxy could detect such things, given time.
Naero understood more about the shapechanging process, and felt slightly relieved.
Shapechanging was a form of replication, or at least very closely related version of it. Naero felt a flare of pain on Tess’s part at the height of the process, but it was nothing that could not be endured.
She had experienced far worse.
The entire process took seconds, much less than a minute.
Then Tess shifted back to her neutral form, her base form, in about the same time.
“That was amazing, Tess. Can you do it again, and is there any way to slow the process down more?”
“I can,” she said with a frown, “but that causes more pain. It’s better if you do it quick. For your sake, Naero, I’ll take the pain. You need to learn. Notice also how I keep myself anchored to my base form in my mind. That is very important. If you lose your focus on that, you won’t be able to shift back. Some lifeforms can be very distracting, alluring, and exhilarating. You aren’t much good as a shapechanger if you can’t change back. Always remember that–who and what you really are.”
Tess performed the transformation again, going slow, grinding her teeth and grunting and hissing at the ramped up pain. Naero nodded when she had seen enough, and Tess quickly shifted back.
Naero was curious. “When you copy another person or creature, do you gain all of their thoughts and memories?”
“Somewhat,” Tess said. “Not their deep memories and emotions. Those are hard to reach. Mostly just their surface knowledge, attitudes, ideas, opinions–short term, superficial stuff. But it usually works enough for you to impersonate them for a while. That can come in handy, and you will be a match for them on genetic and other bioscans.”
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