【83 - A Catalyst for Fusion!? The Star-sized Collision of Gods...】

A week went by on a strange planet. Prior to their power-up, Jacob had wisely forgone travelling far but now it was much safer. They'd become exceptional runners and climbers. On day three Sinan had slipped from a mossy cliff face and fallen sixty feet, splitting a veritable crater in the rocky coastline. It gave him a slight limp that he recovered from within the day.

On day five Heidi was ambushed by a flamboyantly-hued velociraptor descendant. Its claws shred her clothes instead of skin. Pink indents were left by its jaws, but for all its effort it only succeeded in breaking its own incisors. Heidi let herself get thrown into a rockface for two-and-a-half minutes out of curiosity; after getting dirt in her eye she finally torched the animal and it went up in flames, burning away within seconds.

Ever since, she sometimes ran through the forest hoping to find carnivores to fight.

While the five of them spent most of their time apart they could always sense each other's whereabouts, they couldn't get lost in the uncharted Pangea so long as someone stayed near the base. Kanoa foraged indoors, starting with the dried vegetable packets in the instant ramen cups. Just like when he grew corn from old kernels, he now planted carrots, spring onions and more ever-reliable corn in a garden he maintained. Without these foods, they'd be hunting for meat and risking poison by testing the local produce. A cupboard stocked blankets, they draped themselves and sat around great bonfires at night. Heidi bundled thick branches together and carried them back, constructing a teepee in under fifteen minutes. On the sixth night she uprooted a tree and dragged it into the clearing so she wouldn't have to take more trips to refuel it. She took responsibility for the fire, and it was often blazing over ten feet high. They always sat quietly, watching the embers join the stars, flurrying upwards and out.

Jacob had started to venture out but preferred being indoors, tinkering with programs. He could still explore the cyberscape of their intranet, which was localised to three rows of a dozen desktop computers.

Amira enjoyed exploring the regional caves, and when not doing that she liked to explore Kanoa's mouth.

She pulled back suddenly, breaking their kiss.

"Pluto wants me for more one-on-one training," she explained.

"Okay."

They were standing in a clearing of ten feet bordered by dense foliage. None of the wildflowers grew here, but it contained a pointy rock imperfectly shaped like an egg, standing taller than either of them in the centre. Perhaps it was blasted from the mountain in an ancient eruption, or maybe it fell from space. The clearing was too cramped to be beautiful, but dim and perfect for a guilty rendezvous such as theirs.

"Maybe Jupiter can work your stuff out with you too?"

"He doesn't speak to me much."

"Oh. Well, see ya!" Amira waved, turned and sprang up into the darkness.

His fine-tuned hearing followed her leaps through the trees, they rapidly faded from great distance. Kanoa sensed Jupiter and he was silent. He contemplated spying on Amira's training but decided against it. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he strolled eastwards.

Their involvement was known by Jacob and Sinan, both of whom chose not to think about it. Heidi kept herself too distracted to check their minds deeply enough to notice. Her feelings about Amira were so muddled and turbulent that it was difficult to predict how she'd react.

Heidi's mind felt both childlike and fierce, she fixed onto goals with a singular intensity. Once accomplishing one, she was quick to decide on another activity. At the end of her days, after tiring herself out, she was satisfied. To Kanoa especially, her mind seemed redundant. Her wellspring of confidence as well as being a 'doer' were clear strengths. When they weren't driving her into the others' faces, that is.

Kanoa reached out and parted split bamboo, c-shaped tubes that sweated sap onto his fingers. He tread around their shafts barefoot, now pondering Amira. Their attraction was purely physical, as much as a boy liked a girl and vice versa. He'd previously delved into her psyche and didn't like what he found.

Despite her reclusiveness, Amira yearned for socialisation with peers. In a world where she mastered fear and was a normal girl, she envisioned herself flitting between wide circles of fellows her age, going out late and forming relationships. She was highly mercurial, a chameleon who adapted to her company, and she could switch between roles instantly. Kanoa was starting to understand that his 'processing speed' so-to-speak, was slow, but he found Amira's pace positively staggering. Intellectually curious, Amira was often learning new things but so detached that she gleaned a surface understanding before impatiently moving on to something else. Her mental mobility was why she was such a nervous person, her head was always whirring, frightening herself with awful and plausible scenarios. Where Kanoa's steadfastness grounded him, sometimes she was a basket-case.

Kanoa heard a distant waterfall the same time his step broke a puddle. He observed his rippling reflection as the surface sought equilibrium. Not only was their mental link good for understanding each other but also themselves. Sounds of life shattered the quiet, and further along he found a stream. Kanoa heard the flowing water at a low enough volume that it would be silent normally. With these improved senses he was being reacquainted with nature all over again. He inhaled through his nose, learning more about his environment, and continued along.

The others had made assessments of Kanoa's mind too, of which he was equally privy to. He was dependable by nature which was the better inclination to have long-term, compared to Amira's obsessive intellectualising over how she can get the best out of every situation moment-to-moment. Unlike him, Amira lacked inhibitors to selfishness and it came to her rather naturally. Currently, she was carrying shame over what she'd done to Heidi - that she'd been playing a role in the coal province was confirmed fact - but Amira's focus was outward. While the shame lingered she didn't focus on an 'idea of self' nearly as much as Kanoa. He struggled with self-worth, but whether his judgments were good or bad, he nevertheless spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about himself when compared to Amira, who didn't have much of an opinion on herself at all.

The land dipped and Kanoa spied an impressive rock. He let gravity aid him into a run, then scaled to the top where he could sit and think a few feet below the slope of treetops. The five of them couldn't hide their minds from each other, nor could they hide when and how deeply they investigated each others'. They'd all taken peeks, cursory or not. When Amira sensed how much enduring pressure Kanoa was under, she was unable to handle it and backed out. Kanoa had long acclimated and forgotten about it. When he stepped into the other's shoes, the pressure they were under was like an aphrodisiac in comparison. Sometimes he just lay in long grass and bathed in the relief of another's mind.

Kanoa had bragging rights in endurance and suffering only. Amira had weak endurance and compensated by overthinking and avoidance. In every other way Kanoa felt inferior to his team, even Heidi who he had better discernment than. A slower intake of information didn't mean less intelligence, but Kanoa was learning just how much flew over his head. Only by replaying conversations from the others' memories could he see the subtleties he'd missed. This was what made a personality slow and strong or fast and agile.

Being able to truly see another, to see four others, and also see their perspectives on each other and him, had afforded more human insight than all the psychologists of the world could've gleaned from observing behaviour alone.

Keyly, the five of them agreed on one thing:

While it was true there were different kinds of intelligence, all men were not born equal. Processing speed was one thing, discernment another. To read between the lines versus being naturally blunt. To always save face versus a rigidity or honesty. Positioning others so they come up with your ideas and believe they are their own. Kanoa was bad at both kinds of intelligence. Now he was able to identify why he'd hated himself in the first place, and found new reasons to as well, thereby fine-tuning his own loathing. Caretaker was the position he'd designated for himself, and it only felt more appropriate.

"You're setting down roots with Kanoa. Forming attachments because of fear, again."

"This is nothing like that time…" Amira clenched the branch in the upright fork she was sitting between.

"It's more like when you first met Heidi than you realise." Pluto dug right into her mind and upturned all her dirty laundry. Amira winced.

"But how? I want the distraction. He wants the distraction. It's kosher."

"You also wanted to be Heidi's friend back then, remember? You enjoyed having a sister."

"So?"

Pluto projected his silhouette a few feet away, so faintly that she couldn't be sure whether he was in her mind's eye or if she was seeing him with her real ones. He was playing the role of patient teacher, sensing the approval she was too embarrassed to word.

His thoughts showed her a fact she was clinging to in defence. "You and Kanoa are both capable of seeing each other's feelings through the mind link, that's true. But look at what Heidi went through after Sinan's question. The most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves."

Amira bristled under a chill. She didn't like that Pluto saw inside her completely, or that she could. She hated that her new mentor could see each fact she clung to, and methodically uproot the stones until the only thing keeping her in place was her own inertia.

She spoke slowly, "So what you're saying is…" In losing so much grip she needed the time to hope for another hold. "It's all fear. Like that psychologist who said absolutely everything we do is subconsciously motivated by death or sex, Frode."

"I know these roots you set down with people quickly become tangled webs."

"I'm not tripping myself up."

"Aren't you?"

Arguing this transparently was like being naked - mortifying. There was nowhere to hide amidst her crumbling cliff face either, and any aces up the sleeve were pebbles that'd immediately dropped away.

"Now we're quoting Shakespierce?" Her attempt at diversion was as feeble as her voice.

"We can leave Aurellian thinkers and poets out of this. Especially since all that planet's history and achievements will be wasted if you all vote to abandon it."

Amira slid out of the fork, swinging behind the branch until it was between them.

"...well what about the Gatekeeper?" Clacking down from above, this rocky hold landed generously in her palm. She clutched it like a golden egg. "No power you give us could match his."

"...No." He watched Amira go giddy over her solid fact. "I'm not one to say the wrong thing can't be done for the right reason."

"Then what are you saying?"

"The thing itself. We talked about other approaches. I want to replace your base motivation with another attribute of the darkness civilization. One that would be better for you regardless of what you choose to do."

"Okay... What attribute?"

"We can try Ego."

"That could backfire."

"We represent excess, not balance. They all backfire, but which attribute can still be useful?"

"Okay, I get you now. You chose me because fear and survival was what our team needed. And because I was compatible with Gatekeeper power."

"And now what our team needs is an Amira with drive."

Two hours later, Sinan was walking fast but refusing to run despite Amira's psychic pestering.

"What is her deal?"

"Regardless of what Amira's planning, I'm proud of you for agreeing to talk to the others again as a team."

There Venus went again, with the 'I'm proud of you'. Every time Sinan heard it he felt a small warmth. He didn't believe he'd done much to deserve her pride. It did make him want to make her proud, though. Especially since Venus was intentionally resembling his mother; they knew how much he missed his parents.

"I'm still mad at them all."

Venus hesitated, "Mad because you were depending on them for direction." Her words aimed to steer him to a realisation.

"We have our phoenixes to help us now, and yet…"

"And yet…" She agreed, leaving the rest unsaid.

He said it anyway, "And yet the others don't want to listen! We're just men, you five phoenixes are the closest thing to divine guidance we're ever going to get!"

"We're not the Gatekeepers."

Sinan's brow furrowed.

"We may be older, celestial beings but we don't have all the answers. The other chosens are exercising their autonomy. I wish for you to find the courage to do the same."

Sinan neared the base and Venus was shrinking away in his mind, leaving the teens to talk on their own. As she faded another presence grew: Amira, sending the messenger equivalent of multiple question marks. He mentally pushed her back and focused harder on Venus.

"I am your guide, your partner. I don't wish to replace Solvus."

Then she was gone.

Sinan slowed with a frown; his heart sped up. He parted leafy branches to the clearing. Jacob, Kanoa and Amira hovered around the blackened firepit. Sinan's lost frown became irritation, he trudged over.

"Where's Heidi?"

"Not here," Amira answered.

"Wait," Jacob read her tone, "You didn't invite her?"

"Of course not," Amira crossed her arms, rounding on him. They locked eyes. Amira raised both arms and let them fall to her sides. "What? We all know that Heidi literally cannot be reasoned with. We already know what she's going to choose, so the four of us should get to talk without her cutting us off."

"Amira…" Kanoa warned.

"You know she would!"

Kanoa was quiet. Sinan wasn't connecting the dots.

Jacob's reprimand lacked force, "Just so you know, Heidi told me she wasn't sure whether she wanted to go back."

"Well that's a load of bull," Amira leaned back, beholden to the sky. "Spoiler alert: Heidi's going to decide to go back. Even if she doesn't know that." She looked to Jacob again, answering before he got the words out, "And yes, I do know that."

Jacob closed his mouth. The boys were left blinking.

Kanoa thought it over, and they sensed him agree for a different reason. He was recalling his island's invasion. He believed that whatever the cause, Heidi would choose to fight rather than hold up anywhere.

"She's the most prone to boredom," Amira continued. Jacob and Sinan found themselves agreeing too.

What would happen when they explored enough? When the fear of death and failure had passed? When they finished mourning old friends and humanity? Even if it took her a year, Heidi would always go back. Or go somewhere other than here.

"Now," Amira straightened, articulating clearly, "Since the four of us are here now we should get on the same page. We need to stay and abandon Aurellia. We need to convince Heidi."

Kanoa's brow furrowed, eyes on the ground. Sinan felt all reasoning pour out of him, conversely, he felt like the world's most shallow puddle. Jacob said nothing, turning over the idea in his head.

"Uhhh…" Pluto interrupted.

"What?" Amira snapped like he'd broken a promise. Pluto didn't have to explain; Amira gasped. His nervous thought pointed her to a psychic storm of anger kilometres away. She looked at the others, now wide-eyed like her. "Heidi knows."

This wasn't like Heidi's occasional spits, or even a tantrum. Something had been building and Amira hadn't understood it, but now it seized Heidi like an avalanche. The two girls hadn't had the time to sort out their feud before mutual self-preservation convinced them to join up and teleport into Urobach's rocket. That first day in the clearing, Amira had sensed that Heidi wasn't over things. Nobody knew what to make of what was brewing inside her - until now.

"I gotta run." Was all Amira said then she took off. The boys were in agreement. The way Heidi was now, nothing would stop her.

Some ways away Heidi punched a flamethrower, incinerating a copse of trees. Then, with the idea coming straight from her imagination, she punched downwards with both fists and succeeded in jettisoning herself into the air. Exactly like one of her comic book heroes, she was now flying over the trees to Amira's location.

"What do I do?" Amira gasped, watching through Heidi's own eyes.

"Um, run?"

"Helpful!"

Despite talk of replacing her key motivator, she was running once more. The irony. She cursed while zigzagging in a frenzy through forest obstacles. Heidi was faster, soon hovering along from above. She fought off Mars's interference and controlled the fire with pure instinct. Amira could now see herself fleeing beneath the gaps of the canopy.

"Running! Of course you are!"

She couldn't hear anything over the roaring but the mind link was noonday clarity. Amira resented the comment but didn't slow. Heidi scowled, leaned forward and launched. She snapped a few branches but scored, colliding with her target and gouging them both through the dirt.

Heidi threw punches - their bodies were just as strong as they were durable - several teeth were chipped, blood filled Amira's mouth. She loosed a pillar of Pluto's fluttering blackness, propelling Heidi into a tree, unshredded. The trunk gave in.

Amira jumped to her feet, cheekbone throbbing and bruises purpling. Heidi snapped up and punched another stream of fire that chased Amira around a tree. Then she shot out of the wood and the chase continued.

"Should we intervene?" Jacob asked.

The three boys were standing around, absent to their surroundings while far away, watching the fight. Their phoenixes were quietly nervous.

"They have a lot to sort out," Kanoa replied.

Sinan wasn't thinking in words but he didn't want to step in.

Jacob sighed and started running after them.

Fire met blackness, spanning out like a funnel. The continuous attacks pushed back and forth. Darkness cycled, regurgitating itself while the surroundings were forcefully illuminated by a heated ferocity. After the force relented on both sides Amira finally caved and tried speaking.

"Get a hold of yourself!"

"Like how you finally got a hold of yourself?" Heidi was sweaty while Amira panted. "Right after you had to work with us to save yourself. Right after you lost your ability to use Gatekeeper power." The forest crackled and spit as it burned around them, her voice steadily escalated into shouting. "Like how you literally got a hold of Kanoa? After choosing to replace one evil trait for another: cowardice for ego?"

Amira floundered. In her mental corner Pluto grimly shouldered the accusations. Over Heidi's shoulder, Mars was conflicted over what this meant for their team but he was also loving this.

Heidi's bloodstained knuckles cracked at her sides, she shot a solid glare, "Like how right now… you're wishing over and over again that you could still lie to me and get out of this, but you can't because I can see all of you finally. And you're convinced I'm easy to fool."

Amira shut her mouth.

Pluto deadpanned, Mars smiled.

Heidi's power reached boiling point and she was swallowed by red light. She dived and the landscape exploded.

Jacob stumbled to a stop, aghast.

Supernova Mars Disaster was out, but he was ginormous. As big as a mountain. This wasn't a summon, that was literally Heidi. She'd transformed into her phoenix and was thrashing, pounding indents into the planet's crust, tossing up trees. Jacob heard debris plummeting, tearing into the forest in all directions.

"Why is Mars so much bigger now?"

"Our true forms are planetary in size, more comparable to a gatekeeper than any life on your world," Mercury answered.

Suddenly the destruction doubled, violet shadows streaked out to the left horizon and Supernova Pluto Deathbringer was also giant and struggling against Mars. All manners of birds and animals fled from their habitats. There were gliding mammals with semi-circular wings, and inflatable insects that steered away like tiny air balloons. Hoppers, scurriers, runners. Clouds of living creatures evacuated as the phoenixes wrestled. Mars threw off Pluto who crashed into a mountain, an avalanche spilling down the other side. The ground under Jacob blurred like a trampoline.

Mars wormed through inland, the river beneath a stream and the lake a slow-moving puddle. The clouds were closer, ten times their height above. Pluto lunged, seizing Mars with skeletal hands and slammed him down, blunting the tip off another mountain. Mars opened his beak and spat fire that parted around Pluto, both sides travelling several times their length, burning the next mountain, and the next, and the next into gigantic rubble. The charred paths were new landscape. Pluto was dazed but unharmed, then Mars shot out a fiery wing that created some distance between them.

Both combatants sobered enough to consider it fortunate they were having this world-shattering fight on another planet. Would any of it be left? Not if things escalated further…

At that understanding they both flashed red and purple, shrinking down into specks. The red speck soared close and both sank down, down, landing softly as people until their glows diminished completely.

Heidi and Amira stared at each other upon jagged ground. Falling rocks plinked all around, and dark specks were falling from high in the blue sky.

"There's a better way to settle this," Pluto murmured. A violet glow from Amira's hand became her deck, clenched tightly.

"Let's go, Heidi." Mars encouraged, a red glow becoming the deck in her hand.

The girls stared at each other wordlessly, tables formed from the limestone of mountain innards. Their sealed finishers took shape behind them: Dokindam crucified to his stone tablet and Zeron's wispy portal.

"I cast Mendelssohn!" The green silhouette of a dragon upturned its snout and hissed. Infelstarge and Katta Kirifuda & Katsuking floated off Heidi's deck and turned, adding themselves as mana.

Amira quietly charged and did nothing.

"I summon Bolshack Glory Lupia!" Fire burst and its wings spread then started flapping with a small sword in its grip. "Since MaltNEXT is a dragon I can boost again."

Two more mana gained.

"I summon Turbo Cho, Climb!" The skeletal vehicle had a sinister, sizzling engine.

Heidi grinned then closed her eyes in bliss, "Blocker… can't attack… is destroyed after winning a battle… Mugen Climb: can be summoned from the graveyard."

"I can sense cards too, you know."

Heidi opened her eyes, "I summon Infelstarge!" Amira paled after sensing its effects. "I put up to two non-creature cards in the battle zone into mana! I choose two of Dokindam's seals!"

A plant-dragon stretched out purple wings and emitted a brassy, broken roar. Two crowning Xes burnt away. Heidi pulled two cards. "Now Lupia, shield break!" Its feathers ignited, a few flicking off and coalescing. Lupia swung its sword like a baseball and the fireball was defenestrated through a panel.

"Shield trigger, Grand Guignol, Dark Advisor!" A striking blue-grey demon pointed his staff, three other hands splayed, "I bounce Lupia. Then I mill two and take Noron Question Up to my hand. Okay, my turn!" Her tabletop readied itself. "Grand Guignol, shield break!" It sailed across the zones and whacked a shield to pieces.

"I choose five."

Both girls twisted their heads to the interloper. Jacob was holding his deck. It floated to his newly formed table and began arranging itself.

"I summon Java Kid, Aqua Boy." His top card revealed itself as a liquid person he could keep and summon, "Aqua Super Emeral! Then I summon Aqua Guard as well and end."

Two blockers but more importantly, three baits out for Mercury on his first turn.

"You hijacked the wrong duel! I summon another Infelstarge, that's two more seals gone! Then I cast "Help me! Malt!" and put MaltSAGA, Explosive Flame Dragon Ruler!" The penultimate seal was gone. "Dokindam's just your secondary problem, cause right now I have twelve dragons in my mana zone! So from hyperspace I bring out Glee Gee Passion Sword, Heart Burn Galaxy Fortress and Gaiheart Galaxy Sword!" The fortress landed with a crash; twin blades fell into MaltSAGA's hands. "MaltSAGA double break Amira's shields!"

"Turbo Cho blocks!"

It was smote by skyward fire, like the chastisement of an angry sun god.

"Even so… triple dragsolution! Little Big Horn, Passion Dragon! GuyNEXT, Super Battle Victory Dragon! Gaiginga, Passionate Star Dragon!" Three new giant dragons reinforced her zone. Heidi turned to her other opponent. "Gaiginga destroys Aqua Super Emeral." Gone in blazing glory. She looked back to Amira, "GuyNEXT triple break!"

But Jacob stepped in, "Aqua Guard blocks!" It dived across the triangle of their duel and was splattered, its remains boiling off the edge of a giant sword.

"Infelstarge… double break!" It slashed with fingery branches.

"Shield trigger, another Grand Guignol! I bounce your second Infelstarge!"

"Gaiginga double breaks!" The final defence blitzkrieg. It was all over before Amira could catch a break. "Little Big Horn, todomeda!" It waddle-stomped and reared its head, throwing Amira up and off the mountain.

"I summon Newton Aqua Ace and Aqua Jester Loupe. Java Kid, shield break!" It flew and Heidi was forced to look back from the gorge, losing another panel.

"I summon Glenlivet, Explosive Dragon Ruler and Dokindam liberates!" Gravity trembled, rattling their bones and teeth. Everything on the ground, the clouds in the sky, transmuted into black against shocking red. As their surroundings slowly reverted there hovered the cursed figure of Dokindam. Three shrine gates fell, spearing the ground with their posts, trapping Jacob's creatures and toppling more rock down the slope. "Your cards are sealed. I don't attack. Your turn."

Jacob was momentarily surprised before understanding. He drew his last card - kaboom!

The blast threw him into the mountain, which was more fun than scary. He blinked until his vision returned, seeing Heidi standing there uncertainly, as if on standby.

An idea occurred to him.

"How about we leave the others for a little while?" he proposed. She blinked, staring at nothing. Jacob continued with surprising empathy, "Cool off for a few days?"

Heidi's cards shone red before vanishing inside of her. She turned around, "Cool," then started bounding down the other side of the mountain.

Jacob looked to where Amira fell, the same direction Kanoa and Sinan were in. Then he jumped after Heidi, heading north.

『AN: Thanks to Convergence for reviewing all of nature arc! Again, too many reviews to respond to them all but I'm glad you feel like the arcs have been improving. Thanks to Shuriken and Acuma for reviewing last chapter. Not all chapters are going to be action hype ones Acuma, I wanted to focus on character intricacies in this first quarter. As it happens there's action here anyways. Life update: I passed my penultimate semester of uni! I only have one more to go before I finish my double-degree! It doesn't seem likely I'll get to halfway through the arc before I go back to uni, so we can only wait and see if this story will be completed this year. It still might be!』

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