ELI
My body was still augmented so the jump I took from behind the boulder covered almost half the distance to the bear. I was ready for a fight. Jellyfish were always my favorite animal, and these were swimming in the air, not to mention beautiful. A soft pink bell, and rainbow colored gonads shone from the inside. I hate bullies and to hurt such magnificent creatures… Unforgivable. I know I hunt for food as well, but I needed to do that to survive. Please forgive me, mother nature.
I released the restraints from my crystal with a sigh of relief and pushed more xin into my body, into every part. It was still a bit slow to my liking, but much faster when I first tried it. When my leaking xin, at this point, a tsunami, not a wave of pure energy, reached the bear, it suddenly stopped and looked at me.
Just in time for it to find himself just in front of my fist, that came toward him like a bullet. This was even more powerful than when I fought the snapping turtle, and I heard its skull cracking under the pressure.
I flew back from the impact as well, and it let out a deafening roar. Leaping toward me, with its front paw ready for a smack, I put up a barrier of condensed air. It needed a bit of time, which I didn’t have, and it could only slow down the paw until it smashed into my left hand. I felt and heard a loud crack, which was a bad sign. I dialed up my augmentation to eleven and kicked a paw it was standing on. It immediately broke with a stomach churning snap, and the beast buckled under its own weight, hitting its head hard on the hard ground.
Regaining my balance from my kick, I went back and started punching its head with all my force. After a few smacks and failed attempts at getting up, its roars subsided and finally caved in. Its skull was a disgusting paste of broken shards of bone, smashed brain and trickling blood. It was my first time fighting when I actually thought I would throw up.
I staggered back and sat down on the floor, catching my breath. The adrenaline was draining from my system, and slowly the pain from my left arm intensified. I looked at the jellyfish, it was slowly coming towards me and the massive beast’s remains. I don’t know if it had eyes, but it seemed to look at the corpse, checking if it really died. After confirming, it turned to me and came forward.
Raising one of its many tentacles in my direction, it waited for something. Should I like, shake it or something? I slowly lifted my finger and touched the tentacle. A quiet zapping sound followed a shiver that propagated through my finger, into my hands, up my arm, spine and into my head. A vibrating feeling ran through my brain in an instant, so fast I couldn’t even pull my hand away in time. I was frightened, but for some reason this brain shiver felt comforting. I stepped back a few steps and put my hand on my head.
<Thank you for saving me. Sorry if that felt uncomfortable, I just connected with your brain.> A voice suddenly came from what felt like inside my own skull. It felt strange and uncomfortable. It was the jellyfish talking to me through my own thoughts.
“You can speak?” I asked it, flabbergasted.
<Not as much as speaking, rather sending messages to your brain. I made a connection so I could thank you, but I can sever it if you want.> It sounded like my own voice, mixed in with some other, subtle layers of different sounds.
Tara was now out as well from the cover, and she was walking toward us.
“You seem like the most intelligent beast that I encountered so far, and you don’t even have a brain. how does that even work?” I asked it.
<I’ve made connections to many beasts I encountered so far, and I’m borrowing the leftover computational power they aren’t using. Technically I have dozens of brains, yours now included.>
“So, I’m talking to myself right now in a strange way?”
“Absolutely. And it looks weird. You should stop it.” Tara stood next to me, looking concerned and worried.
<You can send me thoughts as well, that would be probably better.> The jellyfish sent me through a mind message. I started concentrating on the words I wanted him to hear, and I felt our connection vibrate as I sent it toward him.
<Like this? Can you hear me?>
<Yes, I can. You learn quick.>
<This feels very strange. I don’t like it.>
“What’s going on? Are you okay? I’m starting to get worried.” Tara asked me. Now I was holding conversations on two different planes, and it felt overwhelming. Like texting and talking at the same time.
“This jellyfish sort of connected to my brain or something, and now we’re talking.”
“What?” Instead of elaborating further, I just sent a message to the jellyfish to show it to her as well. He held up one of his tentacles for her as well. It just now occurred to me that this could be dangerous. But quickly activating a poor version of xin vision, I could see the strings connecting my brain to the jellyfish’s crystal which was where his stomach should’ve been. I felt that this connection could be severed with enough xin, so the worry quickly dissolved. He just wanted to talk to us. I sent a nod toward the still worrying Tara.
She touched the tentacle as well, and I could see the shockwave run through her as well. Then, still using the xin vision I saw the light thread reaching out from the jellyfish to her head as well. It looked pretty cool, aside from the creepiness.
“Whoa. Is this real?” She asked as soon as the connection was made.
<Yes, very. Again, thank you for saving me. All my family was killed which is sad, but I will survive for their sake. I’m probably the weakest of all of us, but I would like to repay your kindness with helping you.> He (I’m using “he”, because his voice was masculine before, probably because of me, but now Tara’s voice was added to the mix as well, so I don’t know anymore. I don’t want to use it.) turned towards Tara.
<I looked through your head a bit, and you’re very strange. You both are, to be fair, the strangest creatures I’ve met so far, but you are especially unique. I saw your goal and it is noble, I would like to help.>
“What's he talking about? What goal?” I asked Tara, who had that face again, if I caught her doing something illegal. I felt confused.
"I will tell you someday, soon. But I need a bit more time, and you need to see the world a bit more."
"What, are you testing me?" I asked, now upset. What's this all about? Can I even trust this person?
"I'm sorry. I promise I'll tell you everything, but it's a rather difficult subject. Also, we should get going soon." And so, the conversation ended. It was extremely awkward. She wouldn't look me in the eye.
"Well okay, we'll talk about it when you're ready. Ahh... One second, I need to fix my arm."
Suddenly my left arm began to throb, and the pain washed over me. I gathered my strength and started concentrating and began the healing process. The agony was barely tolerable, as I clenched my teeth to lessen the burden. Suddenly a voice seeped into my mind through the pain.
<I can help with that a bit. Seems to hurt bad.>
"That would be awesome, thanks." I replied to the jellyfish. A moment later, the pain dulled a lot. I only felt it through a filter, and it lessened the effect quite a bit. A short while after, I barely felt any pain, only the dull snapping of my bones back together. A few seconds later it was completely healed, and my senses returned to normal.
"Thanks! What was that?"
<I temporarily severed the nerves coming from your arm so it wouldn't hurt that bad.>
“You’re full of tricks. Hey, do you have a name?” I asked the very helpful jellyfish.
<My kind doesn’t use names, we are all connected to each other, and we know the other’s xin signature to distinguish ourselves.> Came the mind message reply.
“Can I give you one then? It would be easier for us in the future, if you really want to come with us.”
<Sure, that is fine by me.>
“How about Neo, then?” After a bit of thinking, I came to this name. For some reason, he reminded me of an early version of AI, so this was my first impression.
<You called some weird parallels, but it has a nice ring to it. I like it.>
“Well then Neo, welcome to the team.” I said to him finally.
“Hey, Eli? Do you feel this?” Tara finally finished the embarrassing sulking and finally looked at me with concerned eyes. A few seconds of listening later, I felt it as well. A massive xin wave, rhythmically, like a heartbeat. Then I felt it, not with my crystal, but with my internal organs as well. These were the steps of a massive, truly gigantic beast. I had no chance of beating it.
My xin output causes Tara anxiety, although she is a very good fighter, but this beast affected me as well. My throat ran dry, and my heart sank, and I couldn’t even see the creature yet. What could it be? “We should leave. Quickly,” I said. We need to book it and find a solution to my leak as soon as possible. “Can you keep up, Tara? Maybe you should climb on my back.” I noticed her crystal draining on the way here, while I barely noticed my own usage.
“Are you sure? I’m going to run out after a few more hours, I think. But can you really carry all of us?” Good question. Probably while filled with xin, I could manage. But first, we need the crystals here.
“I think I’ll be fine. Neo, would you mind if we took the crystals here?” I asked our new friend, since it was his dead family. Probably a bit inhumane and douchey to ask, but we need all the xin we can get our hands on.
<They would be fine with that, and they won’t need them anymore anyways. I think they would be glad they could help us even after their death.> He answered, with no sign of sadness or grief. Just cold, calculated and strategic.
“Alright. Tara, can you take care of that? I’ll get the big guy here.”
“Sure.”
We started digging around in the corpses. It was uncomfortable defacing Neo’s family members, but even he helped remove the crystals with his tentacles and putting them into bags. We were as gentle as possible while dealing with them and buried the bodies in a quickly made grave I dug up with my knife in the rocky soil.
Once we were done, Tara put her backpack on, filled with the xin gems, and she climbed on my back. She held on with one hand and used the other to fix Neo in place near my shoulder. It has been only a few minutes since we first felt the massive xin waves over the horizon, and it got more and more intense by the second. It was close.
Just to confirm this, we heard a massive roar. More like felt, it was at such low frequency, it vibrated our internal organs, and caused a weird pressure, but there was almost no audible sound. I took that as a perfect signal for takeoff.
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