Tome of Tales: The Abberants

Become Someone New

Thomas is lying on a bed. He is having a nightmare. In his dream, He sees himself walking in a school hallway. He avoids looking at people and stares at the ground. A few rooms before his classroom there are four kids blocking the hallway. They are seniors of the school. Thomas is currently in fourth year. One of them sees Thomas "Look guys it's Thomas. Hahahahahah." The other students in the hallway looks at him.

The able bodied guy rushes towards Thomas and punches him in his stomach. Thomas kneels to the ground from the pain like he was hit by a bullet. In his view, he sees an incoming kick right in his face. "Pathetic," the other kids said at him as he falls to the ground. He sees them run when a teacher arrives. His visions fade while he is lying in the ground. He felt himself falling into a strange light of glowing blue energies.

Thomas wakes up inside a room. "Am I in an alien heaven?" he looks around the room, commonly be seen in science fiction movies.

"You are not in an alien heaven. You are currently in the Mont'na Room 07," says a deep cracked robotic voice.

Tom was frightened by the voice. Upon realizing that the voice is an AI. He politely asked it "Did you abducted me? Where are my friends?" then gets up of his bed.

"We did not abduct you nor your friends. Your friends are with my master in the control room watching anime."

Thomas stands up on his bed and asks the AI, "Where is this control room?"

"The control room is in the upper floor of the ship. You are currently in lower floor. When you leave from this room. Turn right then use the elevating platform to go up there."

Thomas replies "Thank You," and moves towards the door that opens automatically. He followed the AI's instructions and looked for the control room in the upper floor. As he walks in the hallway, he is amazed by the ship's interior architecture.

Thomas door of the control room automatically opens. He proceeds to enter the room. He sees Paul and Chuck with Josh inside the air conditioned room sitting on a sofa. They are watching an anime in high resolution shown in flat screen monitor as large as a the screen in cinemas. Paul, Chuck and Josh looks at Tom in the door.

"Ey, Tom have a seat," Paul calls him. Tom goes to the five-person sofa and sat on its leftmost side next to Paul. Thomas felt the cool, comforting and fluffy sofa. Josh grabs the remote in the rightmost part of the Sofa and stands up.

"Well since the three of you are finally here." Josh presses a red button on the remote and the monitor proceeds to present an image of the strange artifact. "The object you three saw earlier, is The Cube of Arcanlos." The three gets more confused of this strange object.

Josh further explains, "Cube of Arcanlos is an artifact containing the powers of an Ancient Arcani, Arcanlos Dominus." He then changes the image of the cube on the monitor into a 3D Visualization of Paul, Chuck and Thomas' anatomy that is now genetically altered. "The thing is, those powers is absorbed by the three of you."

"What do you mean we absorbed?" Chuck confusingly asked. "It almost killed us." Chuck is not convinced by what Josh is saying.

"As you can see, The anatomy of you three has been remade." He uses the red dot laser pointer of the remote and points it on the image of their 3D anatomy in the monitor.

Josh then proceeds to explain their individual powers. "Thomas, your muscles are the ones affected by the Cube. It gives you the ability to absorb various forms of energy such as electricity and kinetic energy."

Chuck and Thomas becomes puzzled by Josh's explanation. Paul clarifies it, "For example, when a person punches Thomas, he can absorb that physical damage without feeling pain. Then, His own strength and the energy of the punch he absorbed will combine, creating a more powerful force. Your original strength will only go back to normal after releasing all the energies your body absorbed."

"I can now do that?" Thomas' face was clearly surprised. "Paul, punch me five times in my shoulder." he immediately suggests.

"Okay." Paul tenses his meaty fist. "Here we go." Paul punches Thomas in his left shoulder continously, five times.

"I can't feel any pain." Thomas stands up in the sofa and rolls his shoulder warming it up. He feels more tensed after the punch.

"Try punching my training dummy" says Josh then points on the metal humanoid dummy standing near the wall of the room. It has many scratches and rust probably because of the electro handkerchief.

Thomas goes closer to dummy, hardens his right arm. He thinks of the dummy as his bullies and releases a heavy punch on the dummy's faceless head. The impact of Thomas' fist separates the dummy's head from its body, hitting the wall, then rolls on the ground. Thomas looks at his fist and shouts, "Ohhhhhhhhh!" The others vibes with him.

"How about me?" Paul asks Josh. "And Chuck. Do we have cool superpowers too?"

"Paul. The artifact affected your brain. You are now three times more intelligent than before. You no longer have to worry about forgetting things now. You have infinite brain memory storage." explains Josh. "You don't need glasses when reading. Your eyesight was repaired by your brain."

"Huh, No wonder I'm so smart and active right now. Are you an Arcani or another alien species disguised as a human in our planet?" Paul smoothly clear ups after understanding his powers.

"Now that you asked about it." Josh presses a button with a face icon on his large watch. "Yes, I'm an Arcani."

His skin turns greyish and now has a glowing white hair. Josh's eyes is as bright as the moon, glowing white. An Aracani has a head bigger than their belly. Their body shape is similar to humans but does not have any hair skin.

"What, you're an Alien!?" Chuck was shocked by Josh's new appearance.

"My goodness Chuck, What kind of human has a spaceship!" Paul face slap himself.

"I thought, this place was just a design." Chuck laughs slowly. He really did not noticed it.

Paul quickly analyzes Chuck's anatomy flashing in the screen. "So Chuck, The Cube affected your skin, organs and blood. You can transform into a armored beast with fangs and claws, very fast regeneration due to accelerated blood flow, and your senses and insticts are also heightened."

Chuck frowns "I became a monster." He looks very disappointed of his new power.

Thomas lightens him up, "A monster or not you are still our pure hearted innocent best friend. Think of positively. Right Paul?" He sat back at the sofa. Thomas is good at advices for his friend but he can't even think positive of himself.

"Yep. Once you mastered that power, you can transform into a hero, at will" Paul agrees. He then questions Josh, "So Josh, why do you chose to stay on Earth? Why Philippines?"

Josh tells them, "Earth is one of the planets neglected by the Arcani Conquerors, the strongest fleet of our colony, due to it's primitive state. It is the best place to live a peaceful life, free from Arcani politics and war. Earth is also rich in Enigmus."

Chuck did not understand and asks, " What is that?"

Josh explains "Enigmus is a universal energy that allow creatures to generate any form of energies, create matters, control minds and warp between spaces." Josh changes the screen into pictures of famous magicians and even the ancient wizard, Merlin." In your history many humans had used these type of energy and call it Magic."

Josh changes the screen into a geographical image of Earth. Each country is colored from green to red. Philippines is noticeably colored redder compared to other countries. "The majority of us and other species chose to dwell in the Philippines for it's high Enigmus density. Our species voted Philippines as the number one country with the most anomalies poll."

Josh adds, "There are many creatures from other realms, such as encantos and demons, naturally exist here in the archipelago. They came from the Enchanted Realm and Demon Realm. Our vast universe is in the Finite Realm."

"Paul. Chuck. Those cryptids we were talking about were all true." says Thomas with a low voice. "The Journal of Philippine Cryptids was not a waste of money after all. Our ancestors who encountered them were not insane." Tomas is enthusiastic. He avoids gazing at Josh, he is shy when talking to new people besides his friends.

"There are lots we don't know Tom, Geez. There's even different realms from our already large universe to begin with." Paul responds.

"Now that you know, your nation is the best place for aliens to blend in." Josh then changes the presentation into an anime show. "For now, we relax. I'll brief you on how to use your powers later."

"We better be. Even my enhanced brain needs to relax too. Today is just too much to think of," brags Paul. He remembers the vlog they need to make but did not think about it further. Talk about procrastinating.

Back in the clearing, It's already afternoon. A female figure appears in through a dark smoke along with the two more dark encantos. She sees the grassy grounds full of holes because of the fight earlier. She then walks to the crater caused by the strange artifact. The female figure is an alluring woman with a pale white skin. She wears a black ornamental dress. Unlike the other dark encantos, her body emits a larger black smoke. Yet, her appearance is clearly visible. "I can feel a very powerful energy." Her voice is cold and serene.

The encanto who escaped from Josh walks closer to her. "My Mistress, an object appeared here. Three humans became victims of the object when it exploded but were unharmed. We tried to bring them to you but a human riding a flying machine suddenly arrives from the sky and attacked us. He wounded my allies and killed one of us. I was the only one who escaped. After they left, I went back carried the other beaten encantos into the tree," the encanto reports. It voice is groaning and seems to be afraid of her.

Mistress rolls her crimson eyes and starts chanting. Her surroundings turned dark. She and the two encantos begin to see flashback of the events that took place earlier. In their vision, she sees the trio, their faces. She see them caught by the Cube's explosion up to Josh fighting the encantos. Their flashback vision then blurs and everything went to normal.

"I assume, this kids you are talking about may have absorbed the power the object. The flying kid you fought may have known something of what the object is capable of." The Mistress is intelligent and clever. She had a quick understanding of the entire events.

Mistress calls an encanto "Vesh'Ka, my strongest warrior." The other encanto standing behind her with a large muscular body walks closer to her. She tilts her head, "I need you to prepare yourselves. Those kids will surely return in this hills for their project. Such power they now bear is mine. Beware of the the short man your fellow fought earlier. Don't kill him yet, I need his knowledge. Bring all of them to me. Alive," she orders the encanto.

The Vesh'ka bowed to her and replies with a deep echoing voice. "Yes, my mistress." Vesh'ka gestures the other encanto and both of them leaves the clearing. The Mistress stays standing in front of the crater. She can still feel it's intense power despite the artifact is no longer there. She covers herself with the dark smokes her body emits and instantly vanishes from the clearing. The clearing is back to normal but now has a crater.

A distance from the clearing. A young boy is hiding in top of a tree. He saw the three encantos and their scary figure. The boy wears rugged clothes and is very thin. After the encantos left, he quickly climb down from the tall tree. Horrified, He avoids the direction where the two encantos entered and runs into a rural village near the hills as fast as a rabbit.