Origin of the 11th

Chapter 8: Future Vision

The sound of crickets filled the air around me  as I woke up on the ground. Morning had already arrived and the lush jungle around me made the fact that this was still enemy territory seem kind of redundant. Nevertheless, I needed to find out where I was, so I stood up and looked around. Right in front of me, was a sign labeled Mt. Kailash, and behind me, loomed what could only be the Himalayan mountain range. I was almost there to Everest, but something perturbed me.

"Find me at Mt. Kailash alone and you will have the answers you seek." I remembered the figure saying in my dream. Even though I knew that dreams generally weren't something to be trusted, the ones with the strange voices really troubles me for some reason. This was probably going to be my only chance to come alone to the mountain.

"Stop it!" I shouted, grasping my hands over my head and shaking it. "Julia is waiting for you at Everest! I made a promise to be there! I have to complete my mission for the sake of the entire human race!" I kept shouting at myself, but my troubling thoughts wouldn't go away. What if Julia wasn't there yet and I would just be wasting my time by going there? Why not do something purely for myself for once? The Academy's teachings had seemed less and less genuine and true with every moment that I had been on this mission, but I was not going to abandon those ideals.

"But what's the harm in doing this?" A little voice in my head asked me quietly. I had to agree with that; there was nothing to be gained by simply waiting around in a patch of jungle for a few hours. So I decided to go to Mt. Kailash to find out what that figure in my dream meant.

My. Kailash was the closest mountain in the Himalayas to my position, so the flight there wasn't very long. Wearing Super 11, I would be protected against the temperature and atmospheric changes caused by the altitude. Flying presented no problem now because we had already fought the Mechanon, and I quickly ascended the height of the great mountain. As I flew, I looked around at the surrounding mountains. Everest was the tallest, visibly looming above all the other mountains in the range. The air began to grow colder and thinner with the thousands of feet I was gaining and I began to feel so incredibly small compared to the rocky giants of which I was climbing one.

I finally reached the top, sweating slightly just from feeling so small and insignificant. There was something that looked like an ancient building resembling a temple. Grey and thoroughly weathered, it seemed to have once been quite majestic, even amidst all that snow. Thick columns of stone were still intact, holding up the building for what appeared like millennia. There was a long flight of stairs at the foot of the temple that separated me from the main building. Then I saw it, the hooded figure was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at me.

"Hey you!" I yelled, momentarily forgetting that Super 11 could fly and running up the stairs. As I got closer to the top, the figure appeared to shrink more and more until I was standing in front of a figure that only came up to my knee. "Who are you?" I demanded, pointing a finger at it menacingly. There was no way that this could be the same figure as the one that appeared in my dream. The size of the two just didn't match up, and there was no technology in our world that could allow changing biological size or entering someone's dreams for that matter.

"Oh, I see that you decided to come." The figure said happily. The figure was obviously male and had a voice that sounded like an old man who had been sleeping for too long. "You can call me Apollo for now; I'm sure that will change soon. Come inside. I have something to show you." Apollo then walked inside the temple, with me directly behind him.

"Are you a guy?" I asked, knowing that Apollo was a male name, but wanting to be sure just in case. Apollo laughed a little, sounding much younger than it probably was.

"Dear boy, you must realize that a person's sex means very little in terms of how they should be treated. I am usually male, but seeing things from the perspective of a female is often a hobby of mine." Apollo clarified, sounding very strange as if it really didn't have a gender.