“What happened will always escape me, for the next thing that happened was me walking into a cave that melted out of the cliff next to the beach, and even though it was dark, I was everything perfectly, like I had some built in night vision. There were torches built into the walls, but it wasn’t like we needed them, I guess they were for ambiance. The one who first approached me, in fact, the only one who talked at all so far, lead me to a corner in the main hall area, and quickly threw me against the wall, holding my neck. ‘I don’t know who the hell you are, but you ain’t who I know.” I heard him growl. ‘Now I want to know what I saw, and maybe I won’t make you in the scrap pile I left that Voz in.’ My mind raced, I didn’t even know this guys name, and I had to give him reason not to kill him. Then a name came to mind Phantom. ‘Listen, Phantom, I’d love to give you a reason not to kill me. I would. But right now, I’m not too sure of where I am right now, what just happened, or who I even am. All I know is that who you see, and who is inside that head are completely different. Like, the body is the same, but the soul is different.’ I scrambled to say. ‘But give me a second to think, and I’ll come up with something that makes sense.’ He paused, but his grip relaxed, so I knew he trusted me enough to let me talk. ‘Alright’ I started, ‘Let’s just say that every person you see has two parts: A body, and a Soul. The Body is just a husk the Soul uses, and when the Body dies, the Soul leaves. Makes sense so far?’ He nodded, so I continued. “So take me, the Body is still the same thing you know, Je-Angu, as you said. But imagine for a second, that the Soul that uses the Body is different. As in, every memory I’m supposed to have, every thought, is different. Makes a bit more sense now?’ He paused, and narrowed his eyes; intimidating, seeing that eyes here were lights. ‘Let me get someone first.’ He finally said. “Reaper! Get over here a second to check this out! Your brooding can wait!’ He shouted over his shoulder, and just as the echoes faded, a robed figure appeared, holding a huge make-shift scythe. ‘Let me see.’ He hissed. ‘I doubt he can be a Ra-Zarrakk, they never pull off perfect mimes.’ He lowered his hood, and the sight made me shiver: He had a human face, but his eyes were the lights like everyone else’s, and his mouth was stitched shut. The two lights met mine, and I felt my very being start to melt under his gaze. Just as quickly as he started, he broke it. He raised the hood back up, covering his monstrosity of a face. ‘I was right, he’s not a Ra-Zarrak, in fact, he’s not anything we’ve ever seen. He story checked, his body is of Je-Angu, but his soul is someone different. He passes, but now I have to go through the process of learning his weaknesses again. You may release him.’ With that, Phantom let my neck go, and I slid down the wall. He helped me up. ‘That trick you did’ He asked ‘How’d you do it?’ I stared him straight into the eyes. ‘You know? I wish I knew.’
“The next day, I learned about their story. Apparently, they used to have an order of heroes that kept the island they lived on safe. All was good, the beings, seeing they were bionic, lived millennia, never got sick, and were almost geniuses. The problem arouse when the Ra-Zarrak came from across the sea one day. The heroes fought bravely, but before long, they were overwhelmed, and killed. The rest of the villages, bar a few, fell quickly afterwards. Then the real horror came: The Ra-Zarrak used the corpses of the villagers, and the heroes, to create the Voz, the crab-like beings I saw the other day. Even worse, the Voz took many forms, like the worm-like form that shot Phantom into the air the day before. But there were benefits, like, most of the people in the group had powers. Phantom could turn intangible to 90% of the materials found on the island. One named Bulk, aptly named, was near invincible, and possessed incredible strength. Another, named Roto, could detach his upper torso and send it spinning at extreme speed, with fine-tuned control. Finally, Reaper knew everyone’s weakness, and only fought if someone was suspected to be a Ra-Zarrak, and knew everyone’s weakness to be employed if they were brainwashed or something or the like. No one really knew where he came from; they just knew that should someone cross him, they usually died.
“But moving on, most things starting from that point on became a blur, I guess the emotional trauma started to wear off. I learned to fight with that sword; in fact, I still carry it with me today. I also remember raiding a Voz camp, using my new temporal ability to reduce them to scrap wire. Despite many protests from the group; they thought they should be buried; I constructed myself a biosuit to match my form using the scrap. That first one didn’t work too well. It wasn’t that it didn’t have the power; I made sure of that. It was too slow, the Voz, especially ones that took humanoid form, out sped the arms, and I couldn’t aim a hit with the cannons without draining the energy reserves. So instead, I kept collecting scrap, and even mined something called L-Metal, almost indestructible, and even harder to mine. When I finally had enough scrap metal and L-Metal, I formed myself a new suit, this time matching grace and form with sheer power. I even made sure this time that the suit’s reserves were powered by the sun, rather than just being there, allowing me to actually use the cannons I put on it.
“Finally, it came time for me to leave. I had spent around ten years with the group, doing just about anything they wanted to do. I felt a deep stirring though, to go exploring, to see more, do more. I told Phantom of my plan, and to my surprise, he didn’t even protest. ‘I figured this would happen. The way you’ve been for the past few months, I figured you’d want to leave soon.’ So I left; I made a portal, and I stepped through it.”
I looked at my watch, this part of the story had taken almost a half hour, and I noticed Sarah started to look bored. The problem was that I still had a few thousand years to work through. “Listen, the rest of this story will take all day, and we really need to get going, or at least start going.” She snapped out of her daze, looking quite confused. “Alright, one more question, who’s Jed?”
Thankfully, this one wouldn’t take another half hour. “Jed is the Soul I displaced when I occupied his Body. Using Shifter methods, we managed to fuse, so we are one, our thoughts aren’t the same, as you see. Depending on the reality we enter, one of us takes control of the Body. Is this it for the questions?”
She smiled, “Yeah.”
“Good,” I said, “Now, do you have a church around here?”
