Chapter 3
Ra came through the doors once again.
"I see you have both once again mastered the tasks I have set before you. Your training thus far has also provided you with something neither of you have noticed. Your work so far can be considered exercise for your mind. By training and exercising your minds, they have put up their own internal barriers protecting them. My ability to read your thoughts have constantly been diminishing as your training has progressed. I am now completely unable to read your minds."
Aiden and Bill both looked happy at the sound of that. Bill eagerly spoke up.
"So what's next in our list of training Ra?"
Ra turned to look out into space through openings in the ceiling.
"Now, it is time to free you from the thoughts that bind your mind to what you think you must do to survive."
Bill and Aiden looked at each other in confusion.
"I am going to teach you to train your mind to let go of the need to breath. Taking in oxygen is something your mind thinks it needs to do. From the moment a human is born it is wired into their minds that in order for them to survive they must breath in oxygen. However, this is not true. Once your mind is unlocked it acts a generator. It supplies your body with its own power source to keep it running."
Aiden now looked intrigued.
"So you are asking us to go against our basic human instincts and quit breathing altogether?"
Ra looked at Aiden now.
"You are not 'human' anymore."
Aiden and Bill both smiled.
"He is right about that Aiden. I'm a total badass now!"
They laughed together as Ra waved them towards the exit.
The three of them proceeded back to the panel they had taken earlier. This time it took a different path from the straight one it had taken earlier. It moved towards the huge waterfall they had seen. Ra took them to the center of the waterfall and blocked the water as they went through it into a massive cave.
"This is where this segment of your training is going to take place. The first thing your going to need to do is shield yourself from the weight of the water from bearing down on yourself. Once you have done that gently let the water come down upon your body until you are fully submerged. The tricky part to this will be the feeling you are going to get when you hold your breath. You will not suffocate I assure you but your mind is going to think that is what is happening. This is only because your mind isn't used to the fact that you don't need oxygen anymore. You have spent your entire lives breathing and it takes some practice to just stop. Once you are near the point of suffocation it will suddenly click and you will feel normal, your new normal."
Aiden and Bill both were not looking forward to this task. Bill decided to break the ice.
"Always wondered what it'd be like to be a fish right Aiden?"
Aiden smiled.
"Hah! I suppose that would be an interesting thing to experience."
Ra got their attention with a piercing gaze.
"For this task I will give you both as much time as you need. Start whenever you are ready."
He disappeared.
Aiden and Bill remained silent and got right to work. They easily put their barriers up to keep the water from hitting them. Aiden cleared his mind and tried to imagine just the thought of not breathing ever again. As hard as he tried it seemed like it would be impossible to let go of the instinct to breath. As he held onto his last traces of oxygen, his heart rate began to slow. He began to black out and as he thought his life was going to leave him, he felt his heart rate pick back up. It quickly rose faster and faster till it was beating more than one hundred beats a minute. It was still climbing though. One hundred fifty, two hundred. It finally came to a stop at two hundred fifty beats per minute. This astounded Aiden and even worried him. However, he felt his mind even more active than it already had become. Everything was more clear to him, more detailed. His sense of smell amplified one hundred times. Every drop of water was able to be felt as it came into contact with his skin. Aiden's hearing amplified to the point that he could detect any and all movement from every source in the room. Bill opened his mouth to say something to Aiden but nothing came out. He concentrated and after a moment his voice was able to be heard, even though his lips weren't moving.
"Aiden, I feel strange. And I'm talking to you without moving my lips. What the hell is going on?"
Aiden laughed. His mouth didn't move either.
"Bill I honestly can say I have no idea other than I think we are communicating with our minds now rather than our mouths. It may me because we don't have to breath anymore."
Bill looked a little irritated.
"Well I don't like it, it feels wrong to me."
Aiden smiled.
"You'll get used to it Bill."
Ra appeared in the cave once more.
"I see that you have let your minds take over your bodies. Your heart rates have more than tripled which is a good sign."
Bill spoke up.
"I'm not sure I like this whole psychic talking crap Ra. I am going to be able to talk normal again right?"
Ra gave Bill an intense stare.
"This 'crap' is your normal now Bill. If you are meaning are you going to be able to talk like you used to then yes. It will take some practice because it requires breathing to speak how a human speaks, but with practice it will quickly come back to you."
Bill smiled.
"Well that's good then. As long as I'll be able to speak like I used to then I'll be happy."
Aiden decided to break the ice.
"So what's next on our agenda today Ra?"
Ra looked towards the windows out into space.
"We are going to go on a 'field trip' as you would call them on earth. The first thing you'll want to master is putting a barrier around yourself that will keep you from being crushed. It is a very simple thing to do, just concentrate on yourself and imagine a barrier there. Tell me when you think you have this done please."
Aiden and Bill both began to concentrate. After a few minutes they both let Ra know they were ready. Out of nowhere, two pieces of the cave burst out and flew at Bill and Aiden. They both shattered into a million fragments on impact and neither of them so much as flinched. Bill laughed.
"What you didn't believe us?"
This made Ra smile.
"I just needed to test the strength of your barriers. Now that you have done this, you'll need to learn to teleport yourself to a different location. This is also a very simple process. Just imagine a place in your mind, and will your body to be there and it will happen. Start by keeping your barrier up, and teleporting right outside those windows."
Aiden looked to where Ra was pointing and began to concentrate. He imagined the windows but with himself on the opposite side of them. As he did this, a strange feeling surged through his body. He felt like he was being stretched out like a rubber band. The feeling only lasted for a split second and when he opened his eyes he was floating in the exact spot he saw in his mind, looking at the spot he was at just seconds ago. Bill suddenly appeared next to him. He looked at Aiden and gave the biggest smile Aiden had ever seen Bill make.
"That was the most amazing feeling I have ever experienced Aiden!"
Ra suddenly appeared behind them unnoticed. The only reason they noticed was because a shadow had appeared on the hull of the ship. Aiden spoke up.
"Ra, why weren't we able to sense you appear right behind us like that. We have always been able to tell when you get close to us, so how did you do that?"
Ra seemed impressed.
"That is an excellent question Aiden. As you know from your teachings on earth, sound does not travel through the vacuum of space. Even for us with such amplified senses, we are still unable to hear something go by us when we are in space which is void of any air pressure. You won't be able to detect the sudden change in the area around you either because there is nothing to displace in the vacuum. Without something to displace, it is almost impossible to detect an enemy such as Apocolyptica or one of his followers. When we are training out here, it is very important you stay on guard."
Bill began to laugh.
"Well that's easy to fix. Just make a bubble around yourself that carries air within it, and if something breaches it you'll feel it. Problem solved!"
Ra smirked.
"That is a good plan Bill. In fact, it is exactly what I do to put up a defense around myself on space missions. There is just one problem with it. Although you can constantly go through space with a giant air bubble surrounding yourself, someone as cunning as Apocolyptica could teleport to you so quickly you wouldn't have time to react to the change in air pressure in such a contained area. You must remember, him and I have had centuries and centuries to perfect our minds and learn to use them to their fullest. You have known your power for mere days. You'll get to the point that you will be effective with that tactic quickly, but for now try and rely on your sense of sight and your minds natural instinct to survive."
Bill and Aiden nodded in understanding. Bill spoke up excitedly.
"You said we were going on a field trip? Oh, oh do we get to take school buses? Are we going to Six Flags? I haven't been there in ages!"
Aiden began to laugh under his breath but Ra did not find it amusing.
"As much as you would like to go to 'Six Flags' Bill I am afraid I will have to disappoint you.
Today we will be traveling to other star systems to teach the both of you the advanced manipulation of matter. You have already manipulated the elements minus life, but you still need to learn how to do it on a much more grand scale."
Aiden spoke up.
"So we are going to learn to warp planets and stars?"
Bill rephrased for Aiden.
"No Aiden, we are going to learn to blow the shit out of planets and stars!"
Aiden began to laugh aloud. Once again, Ra was not amused.
"You should lighten up a bit Ra. You gotta have fun doing what your doing. Your like one of those British guards that never laughs or shows emotion."
Ra gave Bill a fairly evil looking smile.
"I could show you emotion, but I am positive it would be hazardous to your health. But we can always give it a try if you would prefer Bill?"
Bill took a moment to ponder the thought.
"On second though, I think I'm good Ra. We should, umm, yeah we should get back to what we were doing."
Ra continued to smile as Aiden tried not to burst out laughing.
"Lock onto my signature and teleport to the same place I go and we will begin."
Ra picked through the milky way until he found a spot he was satisfied with, then he was gone. Aiden and Bill pictured Ra in their minds and were at his side in an instant. The solar system they had entered up in had two stars and seventeen planets with hundreds of moons in orbit. Ra began to speak.
"This system is perfect. We will start with the moons, then the planets so that I can demonstrate with them a few times and your final test will be a star for each of you. By the time we finish off all of these planets and moons you two should both be able to implode the stars at the center, and each of you has one to work with."
Aiden and Bill both seemed excited and eager to get to work. Ra moved towards one of the nearby planets that seemed to have about sixty to seventy moons orbiting around it. He began his lesson.
"The first thing that you are going to need to learn and master is the ability to pull something out of the orbit of another large mass. Moons orbit planets throughout the entire milky way. Both celestial bodies have a tremendous amount of mass held within them especially when they are compared to something as small as one of us. The trick to doing this is focusing on the core of the body. You must channel a fairly large amount of your mind's power as compared to the amount you were having to you use in your previous exercises back on the ship. After you have found the core of the body, in this case this moon directly in front of us, force any and all iron within the core to rapidly start to spin. The catch to this is, you must spin the iron in the core in the opposite direction that it would spin in the body that is holding it within its own orbit. This will cause a magnetic field to form but it will be oppositely charged from the magnetic field of the body it is orbiting. With the oppositely charged magnetic field, the moon will be very easily plucked from the orbit of the body that has captured it. Focus on my actions. Focus on the moon. Feel what is happening within the moon as I perform these tasks. I will slow these steps down for the first few tries so that you can break them down and have a building block for when you attempt to do them yourself."
Ra began to focus his mind on the moon. He locked onto the inner core of the body. Aiden and Bill could feel Ra take his hold on all of the iron that was found there. They felt Ra examine the nearby planet that the moon was orbiting. The motion of its core was spinning in a clockwise direction. Ra took hold of the large amounts of iron within the moon and forced the core to spin counterclockwise. Aiden and Bill could feel the magnetic forces start to emit from the moon. They collided with the magnetic forces of the planet and began to push itself out of its own orbit. Ra set the task of keeping the core spinning counterclockwise in the back of his head. He motioned his hands towards the core and then motioned the moon towards the three of them. The moon went from several thousand miles, to just a few hundred in less than a second. Aiden and Bill flinched as the moon approached at such a quick rate.
"It is as simple as that."
Bill and Aiden both sighed in relief that they weren't pummeled by the moon. Bill looked at Ra with a freaked out face on.
"Holy shit Ra I thought you were gonna hit us with that thing."
Ra smiled.
"If I remember correctly, and I know I do, you are the one that said we need to have fun while doing this correct?"
Ra said this with a hint of satisfaction. Aiden burst out laughing and Bill began to chuckle.
"So you do have a sense of humor? I knew it was in there somewhere Ra."
Ra let his smile persist for a few seconds longer. He became serious once again.
"Now I am going to show the both of you this process a few more times and then let you take over and try it yourself."
Ra repeated the process five more time, speeding up each time he did it. By the time he had done the last moon he did it so fast that the entire process was almost instant. Ra then motioned to Bill and Aiden that it was their turn to give it a shot. Aiden went to one planet and Bill went to another to begin their training. Just as in the starting phases of their training, Bill seemed to progress faster than Aiden was. Within an hour Bill had already managed to pull his first moon out of orbit. On his first try however, he was unable to keep his hold on the iron in the inner core and the moon quickly was pulled back into its original orbit. He let out a sigh and started over.
Aiden was a little discouraged that Bill was so far ahead of him but he liked to take his time with new things as usual. Aiden focused and urged his mind to find every single trace of iron within the inner core no matter how small. It took him about a half hour longer than it had taken Bill, but he finally took hold of it all and began to spin it. The magnetic field once again was felt as it collided with the planets and pushed itself away. Aiden pulled the moon out of the orbit successfully and placed it in a new orbit so that he could start over. As the next hour went on Bill and Aiden tried again and again. By another two hours after that Bill was just mastering his abilities to keep the entire iron core spinning and pull the moon out of orbit. Aiden on the other hand was at the point that he was taking multiple moons out of orbit and colliding them together. Even though Aiden was slower at first, he analyzed every step just like Bill had explained to him earlier. Once Aiden took the time to closely examine the steps, he picked it up at such a fast rate that even Ra was impressed. Bill took note of this and decided he would take his time from then on. Ra spoke to them and told them to meet at their starting location.
"Alright, it seems that the both of you have managed to master your abilities to affect orbits. Now you will be shown how to manipulate planets themselves, no matter how big or small. The exercises your going to be put through are much similar to the ones on the ship. You will need to first do simple things such as raise and lower the temperature on the entire surface of your planets. After you have managed to do that, then work on taking that temperature and turning it from a surface temperature to the planet's internal temperature. In essence, you are going to kill a planet by freezing it all the way through, superheat the planet and cause it to melt its crustal layers, and then put it back to its original state. After you both master this task, we will move on to the more complicated aspects of matter manipulation."
Once again Aiden and Bill began their training. Aiden focused on freezing his planet while Bill focused on melting his. Aiden directed his mind to a single spot on the planets surface. He concentrated first on making a small area of the planet freeze over. He managed to make a circle with a few hundred mile radius freeze on the surface of the planet. He quickly set it aside in his brain so that it would subconsciously remain that way. He began to analyze his situation and quickly found the solution to the problem. He took the process he had set aside in his mind and just copied it. He moved it with each copy until the entire planet was covered. Once the planet was covered he put all of the processes together to form one. He now had a basis to work with to kill the planet and turn it into a big ball of ice. Aiden gave it a thought and tried to mentally force the cold into the innards of the planet. It took far more out of his mind than all of the other exercises had done but he managed to force the cold all the way to the core. The planet was frozen solid. Aiden turned to see how Bill was doing. Bill had kept to his word and taken things slow and steady. His planet was boiling molten rock and glowed as if it were a star in the sky. Both of them simply let go of the processes within their heads and the planets quickly returned back to normal as if nothing had happened at all. With each task given to them, Aiden and Bill seemed to master them faster and faster, even though they were getting progressively harder. Once again, Ra beckoned them to their starting positions.
"You two are both making amazing progress. You are learning things that took the council thousands of years to perfect in just mere earth hours. I think that we can actually skip the next step. I want to see how well you can handle the stars without knowing how to manipulate a planets matter. It will be your final test for the day but I am eager to see the limits of your minds. If I am correct, you both should be able to morph these stars into different stars classes, and implode them into black holes without any help from myself. They are in the same star class as your sun is so it is a good starting point."
Aiden and Bill both looked at each other. Aiden spoke up with a little concern.
"So your not even going to hint to us what we should do Ra?"
Ra smirked.
"I want to test a hypothesis that I have Aiden. If I am correct then the two of you will not need my help and can both retire early today and give your minds a much needed break. Best not to completely overload them the first day no matter how quickly you are needing to train."
Bill turned to Aiden.
"Don't worry bud, we can totally do this. We just need to put our minds together and tackle it as a team. In fact, let's link our minds so know-it-all over here can't tell what we are planning hah."
Aiden smiled.
"Have it your way Bill. Sorry Ra, but you did kind of scare the shit out of me too."
Ra smiled.
"As long as the task is complete I will get the information I am looking for."
Aiden and Bill created a psychic link between their minds so they could see and hear each others thoughts and block Ra's out.
"Any ideas on how we are going to do this Aiden?"
Aiden showed Bill a vision of him shrugging.
"I'm really not too sure where to start Bill. The best thing that I can think of is that we need to figure out a way to increase the brightness and lower the temperature and then decrease the brightness and increase their temperature. Ra said he wasn't giving us any hints but he already did. He said star classes and that means luminosity to temperature ratios."
Bill agreed with Aiden with a vision.
"Well red giants are really big, really bright and not very hot. I guess we should start there and work our way back to the yellow star they are right now."
Aiden and Bill both went to work trying different tactics. They seemed to both start by lowering the temperature of the star to about half its current temperature. Once they did that they realized that the star itself was physically trying to turn into a red giant by itself, but just needed a little extra push. Aiden and Bill both focused their mind's energy on expanding the gases in the sun and increasing the brightness of it. Before they knew it, their stars had burst into super bright red giants. Upon doing this they thought back to their star classes. They increased the temperature but kept the luminosity the same and their stars turned from red to blue. Their temperature was increased about four thousand degrees kelvin more than their starting point at around six thousand. After this they simply reset the stars back to their normal temperature and brightness. They then focused on turning it into a white dwarf. They increased the temperature to an amazing thirty thousand kelvin and lowered the light given off by the stars by a considerable amount. The only thing left to do was to collapse their stars into a black hole. They focused on the center of mass within their stars. With all the power their minds could currently output they pushed the star's entire mass towards their centers. The closer it got the harder it was for them to collapse it. They eventually pushed all of the matter so close together that they gravitationally collapsed in on themselves, forming two black holes. They felt the connection between their minds shatter. Ra beckoned them to him.
"Your strong enough to keep me out, but your not quite strong enough to keep me from shattering your links to each other. You two did excellent work here today. As far as morphing the stars, you performed the task flawlessly. However, you collapsed the star the hard way. We will come back to that another day though, it is time for us to return to the ship and you two get some rest."
Bill smiled at Aiden then looked over to Ra.
"See Aiden we did fine all by ourselves. Did you get the answer to your hypothesis Ra? What was it?"
Ra smiled.
"All I can tell you is yes I did get my answer. However, the hypothesis itself will have to remain a mystery to the both of you for the time being."
Aiden let the matter go but Bill seemed persistent.
"Are you going to tell us anytime soon? Can you at least tell me if it is something that can help us. I am just trying to do my job. You know, saving humanity and all."
Ra gave him a sympathetic look.
"I am not sure if it will be helpful or harmful yet Bill. I promise with patience you will find out but for now I need to collect more data."
Bill seemed satisfied with the answer and nodded to Ra that he was content. Ra teleported and Aiden and Bill followed. Upon arriving at the ship, Ra gave them their last commands.
"Get some rest, we start right back up tomorrow."
Aiden and Bill left for their room.