Masenia: Chapter 6. They Can't Make You Go, But They Can Keep You From Playing (Patreon)

Chapter 6

They Can’t Make You Go, But They Can Keep You From Playing

Maria spent the remainder of her lunch and most of fifth period going through a battery of tests. After which the EMTs that were called were slightly baffled why someone like Maria would first pass out, and secondly why she would all but refuse medical treatment. In the end, she was left with a vague warning not to do what she was doing again.

Also, Maria apparently did not make any friends with the school nurse that day. Who got her revenge by banning Maria from participating in any after-school programs. Seeing as she was still expected to stay after school with her sister, this meant that she was effectively going to wait until her sister was done with whatever sports themes she was practicing today. This was perfect for Maria who honestly only wanted to sit back and try to cultivate the energy from the node without too much interruption.

So it was that the last two and a half periods of the day went by in relative peace and quiet. Of her other classes, none were on the back wall of the school, meaning any ambient energy she could gain was the stale energy that had seemed to somehow permeate most of the school by this point. Maria didn’t know how long the school had been exposed to ambient energy like this, but again it did seem like it had been a while. Particularly as she could now see the profound effect that just being exposed to the ambient energy had on people. Her sister, and in fact, most of the jocks all seemed to be healthier, and not just the normal health that comes from working out constantly along with exercise. No, these people were all showing signs of basic soul awakening. Her sister in particular all but glowed with extra energy.

Maria knew that these all had to be signs of the coming apocalypse, but sadly it seemed that no one believed her. Even her hair, clear sign that something supernatural had happened, was now back to normal, as if the changes she has experienced never quite happened.

To put it succinctly, either the world was crazy for not accepting her thoughts. Or she was clearly going crazy, suffering first from a terrible nightmare that seemed to impact her overall personality, at least for the day, followed by a random spree where she got a tattoo of all things. Then coming back from the tattoo, only to see that energy had been slowly saturating the school completely.

Of course, logic told her that she was going crazy, that something seriously wrong had happened in her dream. Maybe during the night she thrashed about and smacked her head into something, causing a micro tear in the brain that was slowly bleeding. That everything she was experiencing was just a psychosis caused by too much blood in the brain causing her senses to be over filled with energy. That was the logical conclusion, and one that many members of her family would likely express to her if she told her true thoughts.

Instead, she kept quiet, opting to try to adjust to her new body and the sensations that her body was able to quantify to her.

***

As Maria sat on the bleachers overlooking the empty practice field, Anita could only watch on in concern. She had wanted to call off the day, to take the afternoon off, to spend another day with her sister. They had grown apart recently, most of which was their own trying to prepare for life without the other, to see what it would be like to live a life alone. The truth was, Anita had been miserable. Yes, she spoke a good game, and could even hide it in front of her twin, but the truth was, she kind of liked being forced into the same room. They got to hang out, they played games until midnight, everything was great, until this morning.

Anita had noticed the soft bandage on Maria’s shoulder, as she tried to lift up her head. She had felt, and then saw the tattoo, of a circle no less. It was stupid, not anything that anyone would want, and yet looking at it, Anita couldn’t help but think it somehow looked like it was something that exactly explained Maria.

Now she watched from a distance, as her twin sat cross legged, staring off into the distance of the empty practice field. The odd part was, every once in a while, if she stared closely enough at her sister, she swore she could see her glow. It was obviously a trick of the light, the setting of the sun, the sudden movement of a cloud that she had failed to notice, there were so many excuses that she could come up with to explain everything, but nothing seemed to make sense. For instance, the sun was in the opposite direction, setting in the west, and the glow seemed to come from the east, from her hidden right shoulder, the one with the tattoo.

Then there was the way her hair suddenly changed this morning, then changed back while unconscious. The entire thing just seemed like a bad dream. One that didn’t seem like it would end anytime soon.

Anita did her warmup stretches, then did her speed drills, then her conditioning drills. Then finally after close to an hour, the team was allowed a quick water break. During which time, she looked over to her sister, but she was gone.

***

Maria had done it, she had finally remembered how to meditate, well not what most would think of as meditation, as that was thought of going into a state of perfect bliss. Instead, the true art of meditation was more of an active sport all on its own. You had to circulate your core, which in turn would cause a suction motion from motes of ambient energy that entered your body through your filter. Then the motes would be sucked through your meridians as if they were giant straws that pulled everything into the giant cup of your core.

Once the energy was there, in your core, only then could a true cultivator begin to experience the true force and power of the universe that was finally made available at their fingertips. In Maria’s case, she felt slightly lighter, as if her lungs had been finally cleared after a long time of having suffered through an upper respiratory sickness.

The more she focused on the spinning motion of her core, the more energy she felt slowly getting channeled into her body from the outside area. As she cycled, she found that no longer were just the light blue motes of energy going towards her, but now there were dark blue, violet, and even purple motes of light that all flowed into her body. If the rainbow was known as Roy G. Biv, then she was now able to process the BIV part with no problems. This seemed odd to her, but somehow seemed to work. It also seemed to fall in line with the weird words those incorporeal voices spoke while circling her. The way they all seemed to speak about the sudden change of her Power Attribute permanently switching to that of Spirit energy. She had no clue what that meant, but if this was the result, then she was all for it. As she could feel her core naturally absorbing the three different forms of energy and letting the streams of energy naturally shift themselves apart line by line, the denser color. Apparently the dark purple or more violet color was denser as those were the ones that invariably shifted lower in her core, followed by indigo, then dark blue, and finally at the very top was light blue, so light it almost seemed to float at the top of her core.

In the end she imagined the inside of her core to resemble a colored sand jar, one that regardless of how hard she spun would not shrink down or compress further. There was a trick to it, there had to be, some kind of trick a say to move her body so that her core would condense tighter and allow her to pack her core more densely, but unfortunately she either couldn’t remember that, or had never learned to do that in the first place. She had been part of the last chance group, a group where all the hopes of the future rested on her shoulders, one where she rode on the backs of all those who came before her, those who sacrificed their lives and their own abilities to teach her and the others what it was to be exceptional.

Now here she was, on her own. Trying things that she only half remembered, and even then she still managed to get things wrong.

She was at an unclaimed node, there was supposedly something she could do here, some way of locking the node in place, but she couldn’t quite understand what to do.

Finally, after a few minutes, she found herself walking over to the center of the practice field, right to the very center of the nexus, right at the very core where all the power of the universe seemed to spew forth into her planet. Seeing the wellspring, Maria could tell that this was not the first time this hole had been here, nor did it appear like it would be the last time. Or maybe it was the last time, and this was her only real chance to make things right before the world ran out of chances. From everything she heard, it seemed like there were only a few chances to begin with, and her last life all but showed that humanity was burning through those chances relatively quickly.

The minute she got close to the center of the practice field, it felt like a dark cloud came over her, blocking her body from the sun, and shadowing her in a sudden shade that felt oddly eerie in the otherwise warm afternoon.

Going close to the center of the field she continued working, cycling her core while walking around. This felt like the equivalent of patting your head while rubbing your stomach while doing squats backwards, the entire thing just felt awkward, but somehow at the same time it felt oddly normal as well. The more she did, the more she found her body and instincts going back to working and cycling ambient energy while moving.

Then the minute Maria stepped on the exact center of the node space, she felt a message pop up into her mind.

Unclaimed Node: Would you like to begin battling for control over unclaimed node?

Seeing the message, Maria paused, twisting her head from side to side as she tried to take in the message. Glancing around, she didn’t see anything or anyone else, but what was this about a battle? Surely if no one was here, then there wouldn’t need to be a battle of any kind, right?

Thinking about that and realizing that she might have avoided the worst of these conditions by trying to claim natural resources like energy nodes before the world was fully integrated, she felt she was playing with house money.

“Yes.” Maria said.

For a moment, everything stood still. All the world seemed to stop, the sun that had been shinning brightly behind her began to blink for a second.

Warning: Incomplete Merger Detected: Resource Battleground not fully formed yet. Planet not safe for nodular battle. Investigating.

Investigating.

Anomaly detected, newly inducted human able to identify incorporeal resource node. Backup system engaged.

Evaluating problem.

Escalating problem.

Problem evaluated and set to Resolve.

Due to lack of available challenges on planet, a suitable challenge will be generated.

Generation will begin in three, two, one…

Just as Maria read the countdown, the world began to spin wildly around her for a moment. Then in the blink of an eye she winked out of existence and disappeared from the field entirely.