Metamorphosis Read online

  He hadn’t tested much of it, for fear of interfering in the process. Paul also hadn’t used Essence again as far as Cal-com could sense, and once he’d stopped again the changes in him accelerated back to their now normal cadence. Whatever buildup was left inside him was going to be worked through gradually, it seemed. Perhaps that’s the way it was meant to happen all along, but Paul had been bottling it up for some time so it got so intense when finally released that it blacked him out.

  It was a loose theory, but the best they had at the moment. Paul said his mind felt like it was being jammed with static, and his top priority was to drain that away as if it was a toxin. He was attempting to do so now with meditation, but suddenly Paul’s body leapt into the sky and floated up some 20 meters above the beach and hovered there motionless, aside from his hair and clothes blowing in the gentle wind.

  I’m fine, Paul said telepathically as he sensed Cal-com watching. Too much sitting.

  Shall we switch locations?

  No. This is a pretty good find. I’m supposed to do something, but I keep missing the switch. I can feel a need, but can’t find it.

  You have to complete the transformation?

  Maybe. Maybe not. I’m starting to get annoyed sitting still and not finding it.

  Are you tired?

  Not as much as before, but some lingers.

  Sometimes the mind functions better when it has simple activity to open it up, while leaving plenty of processing power to roam where needed.

  Any suggestions?

  Let me try and hit you.

  Paul smiled and flew over to where Cal-com was standing watch some 100 meters away. His bare feet landed in the sand and sunk in to cover his toes. “Flying or no flying?”

  “Nothing higher than my head,” Cal-com said, pulling off his armored shoulder plates and tossing them to the side…where they transformed into little drones that hovered off the ground in sentry mode. Next came his shirt, showing his bare black chest that looked out of place on the lightly colored sand and green foliage beyond. “You need to be constrained from running away, but with your speed this shouldn’t be hard for you. You will have to pay attention…” Cal-com said, darting forward and punching towards the shorter Human.

  Paul stepped backwards and sidestepped, with the larger fist passing by his face with an inch to spare. He reached up and slapped the forearm to the side then darted backwards, getting out of range as Cal-com pulled back.

  “Not bad,” Paul offered, raising his arms into a defensive stance. “But you’ll need to do better.”

  “I will try,” Cal-com said, coming at him again for multiple punches and kicks, trying to chase down the very slippery Archon. His one advantage was his leg length, which allowed him to cover more distance in a single step than his opponent, but when needed Paul could skid across the ground a few inches above it using his flight psionic Yen’mer.

  Sand was getting kicked up everywhere, because they couldn’t truly step over it all at speed. So it got scraped and dragged into a dust cloud every time they veered off the wet sand the waves were keeping moist as the two proceeded in a sort of dance. Cal-com would advance, Paul would counter and retreat in a game of chase that didn’t really go anywhere, but roamed around the beach for the better part of an hour before Paul moved so fast he was one moment in front of Cal-com, then the Voku felt his arm being pushed aside as the Human slipped behind him and shoved him in the back…hard.

  Cal-com fell face first into the sand, but rather than rolling out of it he just stayed there, sat down, and turned around to face Paul. “What did you do?”

  “Something,” the Archon said, staring at his arms as he held them up in front of him. “I’m burning inside.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “Raw. It felt like I was pushing on the air for leverage, now my body is burning. Especially my arms.”

  “Continue or…” Cal-com asked, but his words were cut out as Paul’s head went wobbly and his vision altered…except that it wasn’t his vision. He could feel all around him, like Pefbar, but it wasn’t. It was like the ocean had risen and he could see the subsurface currents trailing all around him, as well as creating eddies where it intersected with him.

  All of this was overlaid on his regular senses, and though Cal-com was talking he wasn’t paying attention. Paul moved his arm up and saw the currents alter slightly, then realized the drag was causing the burn. He pulled back, inside his body somehow, and the pressure disappeared and the currents passed through his arms as if they weren’t there, but he could still see them.

  “Wait a minute,” he said aloud, trying to make his arms heavy again, with the burn returning, then he tried to move them without using his muscles. Imagining his forearms going to the left following one of the currents…and suddenly there was grip there pulling his body that way. It felt a little similar to Yen’mer, but that was pushing and pulling off of gravity. This was actually touching something here, not a distant effect.

  Doing so hurt, but Paul decided to try a little more before backing off. This time he tried to use his legs…but they wouldn’t work. Only his arms seemed to get traction, so that’s where he focused, being able to pull himself along against, with, and parallel to the current as if the direction didn’t matter, though he thought he noticed a bit more ease when going with it.

  Before the burning intensified any further he let go and sat down, with the thump of his butt on the sand knocking away his enhanced senses and returning him to normal…except the pain remained.

  “I’m sorry. I zoned out there.”

  “Do not apologize. What did you learn?”

  “A new way of moving. I can grip the air and pull myself along it, except it isn’t air. Doing so hurts, so I’m probably too new at it or not doing it right, but there’s something else here. Some kind of energy field…I don’t know, but something. I have intermittent access to it. It’s gone right now. I can’t make my vision change back to it.”

  “Take your breakthrough and let it absorb,” Cal-com suggested as he knelt down next to his friend. “Perhaps this is what he meant.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t see how this is connected to my Saiyan genetics altering enough to let me rest.”

  “Could this new sense be connected to your ability to adapt?”

  “I can’t rule it out, but nothing I experienced suggested that. It was just there to grab hold of, and I guess I did to get behind you faster.”

  “Instinctively?”

  “Ultra Instinct, actually. I think I slipped into it.”

  “And accessed something you didn’t consciously know you had?”

  Paul locked eyes with Cal-com. “That’s what he meant. The pressure blinds you. Ultra Instinct has to be slightly relaxed. You need full control, and taking on challenges stretches you too far for that.”

  “You have to be OP?”

  “That’s as simple an explanation as you can get. And if I don’t know what abilities I have, that doesn’t mean I can’t use them if I act on instinct rather than knowledge that I don’t have,” Paul said with a laugh. “When in doubt, shoot about. Even if I don’t have a target. I have been pushing too hard pressing limits without ever stopping to search myself for something that wasn’t designed to activate when a new skill level was reached.”

  “Psionics triggers.”

  Paul nodded. “What it took to find them isn’t the way to discover everything else. What if…what if my Saiyan genetics never stabilized because I never gave them a chance to? No, that’s not right. I did try, and every time I had to speed back up. Did the rest change my genetics, or did my genetic change allow the rest?”

  “You relaxed first. Fell asleep before you started blacking out. The first change occurred during that sleep, but it wasn’t the first time you slept. I do not know what kept you asleep longer than normal.”

  “That seems like a lifetime ago,” Paul said, laying back and looking up at the sky as his arms continued to annoyingly hurt. “If I broke
through into something new before, I didn’t notice it. That means it didn’t hurt and it didn’t trigger my changes. No blackouts. The second time Harvey did something to expand my peep hole into it so I wouldn’t lose it again. Then the fireworks started.”

  “Perhaps he triggered the initial alteration.”

  “Or gave me a push,” Paul said, suddenly jumping to his feet. “Adaptation occurs in response to a need. Generation after generation adapt through reproduction by passing on some of the changes to our offspring. In this way a race adapts over time. All people are structured this way. Even plants are designed to change over time, though that’s based on pre-programming rather than training effect. Still, the universe is structured on adaptation and change. Can you name anything that is static?”

  “Things that are not alive,” Cal-com wisely pointed out.

  “True. And plants, while not people and not truly alive, are designed to facilitate those who are. The Life Springs spawn both the apple tree and the ones who eat the apples, and the inherent design is based on the same philosophy. An upward change. Adaptation doesn’t go in reverse.”

  “Is it possible you are tapping into the Life Springs?”

  Paul squinted funny as he looked at the sand. “That doesn’t quite feel right, but I think it is related…somehow.”

  “You believe you were able to adapt in a surge, and that caused the rest of the cascade to take place?”

  “Harvey did this to me, but if he’s telling the truth it was going to happen anyway and he just made sure it happened now rather than later. What if this is a plateau break?”

  “Your genetics no longer read as Human. And those genetic limitations you had peaked out are now altered to allow you to go further. Perhaps adaptation had multiple avenues of advancement and you have discovered a more powerful one.”

  “One that can massively rewrite genetic code?”

  “If it can do so in small ways, why not large ones?”

  “If that is true, then it must be tailored specifically to me. The changes have to be linked to what I did.”

  “What have you done with your eyes to warrant the zooming upgrade?”

  “Other than some focusing exercises to see if I could enhance them, nothing. They’re sensors, not muscles.”

  “Did you ever wish to have an ocular zoom?”

  Paul fell silent for a moment, then glanced up at Cal-com. “Did you sense any Essence use in me when I was blacked out?”

  “No, but I also didn’t look for it. If I can only see inefficient use, perhaps this is something it is designed for.”

  “Harvey said adaptation wasn’t about Essence, but what if Essence can be used to alter genetics? To allow you to adapt in a way that’s not normal. I can enhance the growth of a plant by imbuing it with Essence. What if I accidentally imbued myself so much that I triggered a transformation based on my subconscious needs or wishes?”

  “That could explain the Hadarak Spice Lords.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. How do you do genetic research inside a star or black hole? What if there was a ‘natural’ way to do it. We’ve seen other races with the ability to steal genetic code and incorporate it into themselves. Essence enhances everything else, why not this or something like it?”

  “Did the Neofan mention anything about this?”

  “Not a whisper. Either they are keeping it to themselves or they don’t know. But they did say that when a Life Spring occurs there is an Essence Rush. A huge one. So adaptation might not be caused by Essence, but I bet there is a correlation there, and I may have stumbled onto one and accidentally kicked in the other. Damn it, my arms still hurt and they’re not getting better.”

  Cal-com mentally signaled for his two sentinels to return to his shoulders where they transformed into one solid mantle, and from which he extended a tether down his arm to his hand, which he think put gently around one of Paul’s arms to make the physical connection.

  “There is a massive drain similar to what occurs to you body-wide with the visions. As if something else is occurring, but linked to your body and we can only see the symptom, not the cause.”

  “Then Harvey is contacting me through this energy field thing…and I was able to reach back this time, instinctively, because I have the ability but without the knowledge to operate it.”

  “I suggest you do not try again for a long time. There is so much drain it has damaged your arms.”

  “Do something about that, please,” Paul said, cringing.

  “Are you certain?”

  “No genetic changes, just repair the damage. I can’t relax like this. Speed up the process.”

  “Very well,” the Voku said, and a moment later cool relief flowed into Paul’s arms and he visibly sagged as the cellular stress damage was repaired with stimulated new growth that ate into the food stores within his stomach as well as cannibalizing small bits from Cal-com’s body on his command to do so rather than strip other parts of Paul for the materials.

  “Over pushing indeed,” the Human lectured himself as Cal-com disconnected. “I don’t want to know what would have happened if I had really tried.”

  “Whatever is happening to you, you are an infant in it. Take infant steps or risk your own destruction.”

  “Baby steps. They’re called baby steps.”

  “I would not know. I was never an infant, but I was clumsy upon waking at my birth even with genetic memory to guide me. You seem to have nothing but instinct here, so I advise you to be very cautious. We are under no time constraints. The galaxy will wait.”

  “Right,” Paul said, putting a hand on Cal-com’s much larger arm as a gesture of thanks. “Guess that means nap time for me.”

  “Eat first.”

  Paul raised a finger as if correcting himself. “Eat first. How long can we stay here without going back to local food?”

  “A very long time. I will inform you when that changes.”

  “Stay small…got it,” Paul said as he began walking towards the trail that would lead across the small island to the beach on the far side that held their ship.

  “Where are you going?”

  “For a real shower. I’ll grab a snack on the way, then eat up after. Right now I need the seclusion, and there are too many critters in the water to truly disconnect from.”

  “Civilization has its advantages.”

  “That it does,” Paul said as he hopped from one bit of sand to another across some grass to where he’d left his shoes. Hardened skin or not, he didn’t feel like stepping on another thorn in the jungle brush, and his feet would forgive the momentary restriction once he got into a temperature controlled shower pod and mentally drifted off into nothingness while his body soaked…something he’d been far too wound up to do with his previous Saiyan metabolism always set to high.

  But now he had a low setting, and since the pain in his arms had disappeared, that low setting seemed to be beckoning to him with a subtle urgency that he knew better than to ignore.

  6

  June 24, 154930

  Solar System (Home One Kingdom)

  Earth

  Jason-025 had been one of the ‘no-essence use’ group from the beginning, though now they were all avoiding it. Wilson had wanted to extend the experiment longer so he could get better data, but the trailblazers had nixed that in favor of experiencing it themselves and poking around…which was now giving them more insight thanks to Wilson’s initial epiphany.

  It came down to a matter of exhaustion. Mild exhaustion. But even a slight disadvantage would have consequences if you were unaware of it, and as Jason darted from one ring to another in a new obstacle course set up only 2 weeks ago, he could feel himself adapting to it mentally and physically rather than trying to make the course fit into his existing strengths.

  It was a subtle thing. A little bit of perspective that had been missing, but now that he knew to look for something it was blaring loudly. He needed his Essence, and while using it and allowing it to re
charge gave him some truly immense combat power, that power came at a cost.

  And that cost was mojo.

  He’d been discussing it with the others, and not one of them could cite a time when they had gone without Essence use for a period of no less than 2 weeks. Not one of them. Through thousands and thousands of years. They all kept draining it, even when they didn’t have a need to, in order to gradually increase their well size.

  That was logical, but because they were relentless in their training and didn’t have the lapses lesser people would, they hadn’t been able to compare the two states…because they were never in the ‘no-use’ state.

  And what was missing most of all was fun. Not something that could be analyzed or measured, but everything Jason did now had a bit of swagger that he hadn’t had before. That little bit of life that had been missing was back, and the pointlessness of the continual carnage in the universe was gone. Not because of any new reasoning, but rather because of a feeling.

  A feeling that he was where he needed to be, doing what he needed, and as long as he had that he didn’t need to understand the universe to do his part in it.

  His part. His path. Those had been numbed up from the Essence depletion as much as being 6 hours deep into a 10 hour training session. You knew you weren’t at full strength, but that didn’t matter. You had an objective to go for and you focused your attention and remaining strength on going for it. Afterwards you would rest and recover, clearing your fogged up senses, but this never-ending Essence use workout had kept them fogged up perpetually, and not one of them had figured it out.

  Paul had sensed something, maybe because he wasn’t Saiyan 2 and could slow down a bit more to think. Yet right now Jason was quite active, his hair blonde, and his cells strained with enhanced super speed, but he felt relaxed as he dove in and out of the standing rings that looked like stargates as he zigzagged his way across a long gauntlet of auto-tracking stinger turrets that were throwing the old school stun-laden paintballs in his direction with remarkable accuracy. Enough that if he didn’t move with enough speed they’d wing him. Wilson had made sure of that.