Santa Pyre: The Autumn Duckling

Thursday, May 20th, 2067. Brown Hills Highlands, Santa Pyre. My name was Teala ‘Solaris’ Punjabé, and I was five years old. It was a few days after my birthday, and the defeat of the greatest enemy my Dad and his friends had ever faced. Mom and Dad had taken me to see my grandparents today, and after that we were here in the ‘slice of heaven’ meadow. “Don’t go too far, my little duckling!” called Bill Punjabe, my father, as I meandered about a patch of pretty flowers and took in their beautiful scents. I was having a ball of a time. “Huh?” I caught a feeling of another ‘energy signature’ besides that of my parents. I looked around and spotted a white rabbit. “Cuuute!” I immediately got up from the flowers and began walking towards it. It saw me and began moving away, prompting me to give chase. “Hey, wait up Mr. Wabbit!” I called as I sped up using what father calls his ‘Light Boost’ technique. I had no trouble catching up with the nimble little creature but he equally had no trouble avoiding my hands whenever I got close enough to try to grab him. “Wait, Mr. Wabbit! Let me catch you! I promise I won’t hurt you!” Suddenly, the rabbit leapt impressively above me, causing me to miss completely again and trip over my feet. “Ow!” I cried as I face planted the ground. “Oh, that looks like it hurt!” said my Father’s concerned voice. I got a little mad as I got up. “You’re in for it now,” I whispered. “What is this strange signature?” asked Dad. “Look! The rabbit!” exclaimed Lauren, my mom. I then noticed the same rising signature and saw that the rabbit was now floating off of the ground. “Huh!?” I became bewildered as rocks started levitating as well. The rabbit’s eyes glowed green briefly before the rocks flung themselves towards me. In a panic, I released a lot of energy and my body became coated in this hot, fiery red stuff my parents call plasma. With my senses being heightened, I easily weaved and dodged around the rocks, which were coming in at high speed. “Hey! That’s not very nice! You could’ve hurt me!” I began approaching once more and in response the rabbit threw more and more rocks to cover its escape. “Where do you think you’re going!” “Teala, stop! Just let the poor thing be!” cut my Father’s voice. “You made him feel threatened!” My emotions and my ‘Plasma Light Boost’ power-up dropped as I turned to him. “You mean, I scared him? I… didn’t mean to do that.” I was genuinely sorry. A few minutes later, after a brief sparring match with Father and before we would head back to my grandparents’ house for some dinner, Daddy took me to a small hill just beyond the meadow. He told me I would love the view, so I was a bit excited. I swung his hand as we walked, humming a little tune. Then I felt yet another signature. A really strong one. But there was something different about it compared to the many other signatures I had felt before. “Dad, do you feel that?” I asked. “Huh? Feel what? Is something the matter, Dear?” he replied. As we broke around a corner made by two lines of trees, we came upon an interesting sight. There was a man on the top of the hill doing the same thing we were planning, looking out at the view. We paused, and I realized something. “Dad, lend me your ear for a sec.” Father crouched in compliance. I whispered, “The signature I was feeling is coming from that man. But get this… there is something really odd about it. I don’t think we should bother him.” “I feel it now, but I don’t get what you mean. Are you getting a bad vibe from that person, Dear?” asked Father in reply. “No, it’s not that. Actually, the thing is… I can’t sense anything ‘bad’ from him, but I also can’t feel any ‘good’ either.” Dad looked at me squarely. “Wait, you’re basically describing a purely neutral signature, then. A being with neither positive nor negative Plasma Energy… I’ve never encountered such a person before.” He turned to look at the man again, who seemed to make no reaction to suggest that he knew we were here. “I wonder just who is this guy?” “I can actually hear you two, you know,” said the man’s voice suddenly. “Whoa!” exclaimed Father. He quickly scooped me into his arms, an action I was not objected to. I even loved it when he complained about how heavy I was getting, as strange as that sounded. It just meant that I was growing. The man turned to us. His eyes were green, and he looked not that much older than Father. “Oh, no need to get all defensive. I’m not a threat or anything.” He held up his hands for us to see. “So, you were aware of us the whole time,” said Dad as he approached us cautiously. “What brings you out here?” The man put down his hands. “I’m a lover of nature. I like scenic mountains, so I go around the world hiking.” “Interesting. My family loves nature too. I guess we’ll introduce ourselves first. I’m Bill Punjabe.” “My name is Teala, Sir!” I greeted. “What is yours?” “It is a pleasure to meet you two. I am sorry, but my real name is too complicated for mortals to pronounce. You can just call me Arkhas.” Mortals?, I thought. “Huh!? Did you just say, “mortals”? What do you mean by that?” asked Father. “Whoops! I probably should not have said it like that… Oh, well. I would have to come clean at some point, I guess.” Arkhas seemed to go into thought for a moment, and then he said, “Bill, in order to answer your question within my capacity to do so… I am someone you may have vaguely heard about from the former Master of Time and Space, Chronos. I was one of his bosses, so-to-speak.” Dad put me down and proceeded to bow. “You mean you are a Higher Up!?! Please forgive our earlier rudeness, Sir!!” I gasped due to how surprised my Dad sounded. This person must have been a big deal. “It is an honor to meet you, Sir.” “Dad?” “Please raise your head, Hero of the Mortal Sections of the Universe. Out of our Order, I am the lowest. And, you can just call me Arkhas. It is a heavily simplified version of my complicated name.” “Um, nice to meet you, Mr. Arkoos… Wait, that’s wrong. Ar-khas… Yeah!” He looked stunned. “If that’s how you ruin my alias, then I don’t want to know how badly you would have butchered my real name.” I shot him an embarrassed smile. “Say, what is an alias?” Recently, I had picked up the habit of asking the meaning of any new words I heard. “It is a nickname.” I nodded in understanding. “In any case, it is nice to meet you too, Miss Teala.” He turned to my father. “Bill, allow me to tell you why I am really here.” “I was just about to ask. I was curious as to why a Higher Up would come all the way here. Granted, Earth is an objectively lovely planet. Call me biased if you want.” Arkhas chuckled briefly. “I don’t blame you. I’ve seen a lot of wonderful sights. Anyway, to get to the grassroots of things… I am like a janitor, so to speak. My job is to go around the universe collecting large stores of negative energy. I transfer it to my Superior, one of my elder brothers, who purifies it and distributes some of it back into the universe and most of it into the Plasma Energy Star in the exact center of the universe. “L’Ardenti Sole, or as I like to call it, the Burning Solaris!” “Yes, that one. By the way, notice that I said energy, not necessarily or just specifically Plasma Energy only.” “Huh? You mean you take in various different kinds, so long as it has a negative charge?” “That is correct.” “Hrm…” Most of what they were saying was lost on me, but I just kept mostly quiet and listened. The only thing I recognized was the mentioning of the name of the really big star my father had told me about. “The problem I’m getting to,” Arkhas continued, “is that sometimes I take in a little too much negative energy. As you have sensed, my Divine Plasma Energy is purely neutral. Usually there is no trouble, but every once in a while I become affected. You’ve faced your own inner darkness coming to life before, right?” “Whoa! Yeah,” Father replied. “A similar thing tends to happen to me, but on a much more troublesome scale. I don’t become evil, thankfully. However, an evil version of me in the worst case can split off from me and manifest into a body of its own.” “Jeez, that’s nuts. That is much worse than what I went through.” “Unfortunately, I am unable to defeat my dark doppelganger, and not because I am weak. I am quite powerful. It is just that my purely neutral Plasma Energy has no effect on my negatively charged clone.” “That sounds like a real dilemma. So, what do you do?” “In the absolute worst case scenario, I enlist the help of the current Master of Time and Space. Disturbing him or her from their duties for any amount of time can be troublesome. Otherwise, in most cases I just seek out and recruit exceptionally strong mortals.” “Interesting. So, did you want my help? I’d be honored to serve. I could even get a few of my friends to help.” “That would be marvelous. However, there is still some time before I need your assistance. It will take a few more years before my dark doppelganger will form. Past experience has taught me to seek help as early as possible in order to encounter the least hiccups and maximize the chance of success.” “Is the clone really that dangerous? Forgive me for asking, but how strong are you?” “Technically, I am more powerful than Chronos was. However, if he and I had a match I would never hope to win because of his inherent control of the Quasma element as a Phian.” “Oh, wow. I know about the unparalleled defensive ability of this element due to its unique ability to block most forms of energy transfer. Though, it is practically useless offensively on the other hand.” I had seen my father make a sword out of this glowing green stuff and swing it at a tree. Instead of cutting the tree, the sword’s blade stopped just before the surface of the tree without touching it, and it would not budge any further no matter how much my father applied his strength. It was as if the tree and the sword were repelling each other similar to like-sided magnets! “Chronos gave me the ability to use this element at the end of my training with him.” “Oh, then you alone might be enough to take on my clone. Just keep training.” “I’ll just get Juniper to help, just in case. She can use it too.” “Do you think I’ll be able to help too?” I asked. The two turned to me. “If I train well, I’m sure I’ll be way stronger in a few years. Mr. Arkoo… Arkhas, Daddy once told me I have great potential.” “Hmmm… This might be too much even for you, my little duckling. However, time will tell us the tale. We shall see,” replied Father. “It would pain me if you got hurt from my mess, Miss Teala,” said Arkhas. “We have not known each other long, but I like you.” “Aww. I like you, too!” I replied. We both shared a smile. “Bill, when the time comes, I will message you telepathically. I will raise my signature so that you can teleport to me.” “Sounds good. I’ll work hard to be up to par.” “Great. See you in a few years, probably no more than four, five max.” “Bye-bye, Mr. Arkhas!” With a burst of white light, the Higher Up was gone. “Hmm, I seem to have some work cut for me. C’mon, Dear. Let’s get back to your mom and the others.” “Okay!” I took his hand, became coated in white plasma, and went through a moment that could only be described as feeling like I did not exist.