Chapter 18

Missy snaps her notebook shut as her mother slams open the door to her bedroom. Spread throughout the pages are crude copies of the diagram that was inside that tea box. Diagrams that she's been taking pains to hide, as she doesn't want to go through powers testing again. She just wants to be able to make those space diagrams.

"What are you doing with those clothes? We're going to Florida not Canada."

Missy looks over at the suitcase she finished packing for camp, before glancing up at her clock, "Mom, we're going to be late."

Cynthia shakes her head, "Nonsense, the plane leaves tomorrow."

"But Mom, I managed to make some qi stick when I got home from school today."

Cynthia gives Missy an empty smile as she walks over to the suitcase and starts to unpack it. Missy's shoulders slump as she realises her mom's gone into her 'reality is inconvenient, so I'm going to ignore it' mode.

"Mom, I thought you wanted me to go to the camp so that I wouldn't get in the way of your Gabriel time."

"Absolutely not, you're my daughter. I'd never do that."

Missy opens her mouth to protest before folding her arms and slumping back onto her chair.

Just as Cynthia has started to pack beach wear, the front doorbell rings loudly through the house. A second later Missy's father calls, "I've got it."

A minute later, Missy's father walks into the bedroom, "Missy, your camp leader's here to check you did your homework. Cynthia, when were you going to tell me that you'd signed Missy up for a two week camp? You know I had plans for the second week of the holidays."

Missy slips out of the bedroom as her mother does a volte-face, and says, "You know she's been trying to learn that tea thing for weeks. How could I not sign her up for it?"

A quick application of her power sees her at the top of the central staircase in a single step, but still out of sight of the foyer. As she takes the couple of steps forward to see the foyer, she pauses as she spots the Empress jiggling a baby in her arms. After a couple of seconds, the Empress turns to look up the stairs and smiles as she spots Missy.

"Hello Missy, I see you've been doing your homework."

Missy walks down the stairs with barely restrained excitement, "Can you teach me how to make expanded boxes?"

The Empress chuckles, "That would depend, in part, on your parents. Do you also have the patience to devote yourself to the centuries of work required to become a formations master?"

Missy trips, as she misses the last stair, "What?"

"Did you think that being able to shape reality through the application of qi and diagrams was something that could be learnt by anybody? To move beyond an initiates level in formation will require you to at least match the qi control needed to perform the tea ceremony to an acceptable level. To reach the level of a practitioner, where you would be trusted to apply formations to premises will require nearly perfect body control, advanced spacial and reasoning abilities, and the ability to do the tea ceremony perfectly. Only then will you be ready to start mastering the mortal levels of formations, as they are no longer mere two dimensional constructs painted onto a surface. The lines you draw will start to cross each other without touching. If you reach that level, you may even be able to glimpse some of the formations used in the Mandate of Heaven."

Missy nods as she thinks of all the things she could do with that. The Empress smiles and holds out a ring, "Missy, this is for you. It contains a Dao, a rope dart, and a meteor hammer I made out of a tennis ball, along with an martial manual for using them."

Missy shakes her head and looks at the ring cautiously, "How does it work?"

"It contains a small space inside it that you can store and retrieve items from. Just send a trickle of qi into ring in order to see the inside. Remember, there's no air in there, so don't put anything living inside it."

The Empress doesn't bother hiding a smile as Missy snatches the ring almost as soon as she finishes saying the word space.

After a few minutes, Aster starts to stir as the sound of a shouted argument makes its way to the top of the stairs. As she starts to fuss, the Empress puts a finger in her mouth and speaks in the language of Heaven, "Hush little one, the frogs in the well eat with their eyes closed, while their daughter climbs out of the well. I know you want your mommy, but we have to deal with frogs for a little longer."

Missy looks up from the ring and asks, "What does that mean?"

"Which bit?"

"Frogs and Eating?"

The Empress chuckles, "I'll tell you the story of the frog and the sea turtle later. There was once a powerful noble who was known for treating his servants badly, so many of his guests would eat with their eyes closed so they didn't have to see their wounds and broken body language."

"Why didn't they do anything?"

The Empress shakes her head, "Why don't your parents see what they're doing to you?"

Missy looks down and clenches her fists, "I don't know."

"We can talk about it later if you wish, as they are descending the stairs."

Almost as if it was choreographed, Missy's parents both stop arguing as they notice the Empress talking to Missy at the bottom of the stairs.

Cynthia gives the Empress a thousand watt smile, "Stellar, I'm sorry you came all this way for nothing."

The Empress raises her eyebrows, "I'm here to pick up Miss Biron, your daughter, for camp as we agreed on Tuesday."

"Oh, but we couldn't possibly let her go after the horrid events yesterday."

The Empress shakes her head, "While I appreciate your attempting to give me time to come to terms with what happened. It is not something I regret doing. Indeed, I would expect any right thinking person would have acted the same way in my position."

"But you killed someone!"

The Empress raises Aster in her arms, "And if I didn't act as I did, Aster here would be dead. So would my student Dakala. And isn't she just the most adorable baby you've ever seen?"

As Cynthia searches for something to say, Missy's father says, "Face it Cynthia, you're such a heartless bitch you'd have preferred to see a baby die than ruin your manicure saving her."

"Really Devon, you murdered my dogs and you have the gall to say that."

As they start bickering again, the Empress leans down and softly says to Missy, "Get changed into something you won't mind being ruined and we'll leave when you get back."

As Missy dodges around her parents, the Empress takes the letter that Michelle translated, and Cynthia signed, out of her ring and carefully takes it in both hands before pulling it apart like taffy. As Aster reaches for the letter, she lets go and takes out a fist sized transparent ruby carved into a phoenix figurine, and hands it to Aster to suck on. With Aster now occupied she starts pulling the letter apart again, until it seems to pop and she's holding a duplicate letter.

Putting the original back in her ring, she withdraws her personal seal and carefully stamps the copy next to Cynthia's signature.

When Missy comes back down wearing a lacy pink dress with stripy pink tights and hot pink pumps, the Empress shakes her head. As she moves to stand beside the Empress, the Empress steps forward and hands out the letter to Devon. "Mr Biron, this is your copy. Mrs Biron should already have her own copy. We'll be off now."

Distractedly, Devon takes the letter, "Oh, right thanks."

Cynthia shouts, "Devon, what are you doing? We…"

Missy waves and calls goodbye as she's closing the front door and cuts of the sound of arguing. As they're walking down the path towards the sidewalk, the Empress draws a sword out of her ring and sends it to float a few inches above the ground as it expands.

"Ready?"

Missy just clenches her fists and steps up onto the sword without hesitating. The Empress gives a sad smile at her back, before stepping up behind her. As the sword takes off into the sky, the front door opens and Cynthia runs down the path, her voice lost to the rapidly expanding distance.

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As the Empress brings the sword to a stop high enough that it's possible to see both the curvature of the planet below, as well as the shadow of night slowly moving across the ground she points at a patchwork of lights to the south west.

"Missy, I know that you came with me partly so that you wouldn't be spending the week with your mother and Finley."

Missy spins around, "I didn't, I want to learn."

The Empress nods, "I know you do. But I also know you're thirteen years old, yet you've also experienced more than most people several years your senior. You didn't get the scar I healed from playing with dolls or gossiping about boys."

Missy looks away, "I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm not asking you to. Instead, I'm going to give you a choice. I can fly you down to Boston and you can spend a couple of weeks with the wards there. Or you can join me at my home. I don't have any sort of camp schedule set up, you would be expected to do the same things that any other outer disciple would do."

"What does that even mean?"

"Which part?"

"Giving me a choice. They'll just send me home again."

The Empress shrugs, "Chicago then, or LA, maybe even Vancouver or Vermont. Which branch doesn't really matter. Especially given the Dao I've given you."

"What's that?"

"What? The Dao, or what a Dao is?"

"The latter. What's a Dao."

"A Dao is a path of enlightenment that goes hand in hand with a cultivation art…"

The Empress spends the next while talking about what a Dao is and why it's important.

As Aster wakes up again, and starts fussing for food, Missy asks, "Why are you giving me the choice?"

"I need to get this one back to Kayden. So you need to choose now. Why I'm giving you the choice. I've given you the Dao of Integrity. How can you begin to understand it if you can't be true to yourself. The first part of that is always going to be making your own choices."

"I'm not a child."

The Empress nods, "I know."

"Everyone treats me like a child."

"Children get to have childhoods. If I ever had a childhood, it was stolen from me a long time ago. Much like yours has been in different ways. I've seen children younger than you picking up guns in Africa and India in order to defend their families and themselves. I've seen girls your age forced into brothels to serve the perverse lusts of the local warlord. And I've seen children like you, forced to grow up faster than they should on this continent. All because the people surrounding them are demonic in nature, and can't see anything beyond exploiting their fellow mortals. I see everything, and yet I cannot act. Because if I do, where do I stop? So I obey the Mandate of Heaven, and try to tip the scales where I can. Dakala, Dragon, Michelle, Kayden, Danka, Sue, even you. This is your world and I'm trying to give you the tools you need to make it a better place. But it must be your choice, as if it isn't, am I not one step away from being a slaver myself?"

Missy shrugs, "I'll do it, I'm already a child soldier."

The Empress shakes her head as she aims the sword towards the pagoda, "You are a soldier no longer, you have taken the first step on the path to becoming a heavens defying cultivator. Even the most orthodox cultivators chafe under the rule of law, as it so often goes against their guiding principles, their Dao."

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As they get closer to the Pagoda, the Empress hands Missy a jade slip, "Missy, while you are within the grounds of the pagoda, you must keep this on you at all times. It is the only thing that will allow you to survive. Yes Aster, I know you're hungry, your momma's just down there, I'm sure she can hear you now. Once we land, you'll need to cultivate until you can start pushing your reserves into your body to strengthen it. If you can't lift your hand by first light in the morning, I'll give you a choice of leaving or eating a seed."

Missy takes the jade slip and nods seriously before she gasps as her knees buckle as they slowly move through the increasingly dense qi surrounding the pagoda.

Just before they cross the threshold, Missy pants on her hands and knees, "This isn't so bad."

As they cross the threshold, the Empress catches Missy with her qi and gently turns her onto her back before she can break her arms and legs.

From the ground, a filthy Kayden groans, "Aster" and manages to half raise her arm before it flops back onto her belly.

The Empress gently places Missy on the other side of Dakala as she floats down to land beside Kayden. "Hey Kayden, let's clean you off a bit and then you can feed Aster. She's been an absolute darling. Dakala, can you keep an eye on Missy and guide her through cycling here."

Dakala raises her middle finger before she starts to talk to Missy in a low tone.

As she's gently peeling Kayden's clothes away from her body, Kayden asks, "Why are you doing this?"

"Cleaning you?"

"Forcing us to…"

"Kayden, whenever you want to leave I will take you home. Same as I will return Dakala's jade slip if she asks…"

She's cut off by Dragon's angry voice coming closer, "Empress, why have you kidnapped Missy?"

The Empress sends the letter and check out of her ring and over towards Dragon, "That is the original that Cynthia signed on Tuesday. It's really just an excuse to get her out of a toxic living environment where she's having to choose between living as a Ward full time, or being used as a finger trap between two frogs that can't climb out of their wells long enough to see how much damage they're doing."

When Dragon's suit locks up, the Empress sighs and folds the letter in half so that only the translation is visible. Turning back to Kayden she continues cleaning as she says, "As for why you're cultivating like this. It's forcing you to do body cultivation, and make your body strong. You've also learned how to reinforce your body with qi, that's how you lifted your hand. I'm sure you've noticed that your reserves haven't been growing as fast as they did when you started cultivating here. It's because you're now strengthening your body at the same rate you're growing your core. Once you reach Foundation Building, your tribulation will be very light, if you have one at all. I'll talk about the trials once everyone can move around. I'm going to place Aster now."

Kayden smiles as Aster latches on, and she forces herself to raise her hand to cradle Asters head with her hand.

A minute or so later, the display on Dragon's suit reactivates and she looks at the letter and check in a huff. "Empress, I need to send this to Director Piggot."

The Empress waves her hand as she walks over to watch over Missy, "Go ahead, though I will stop you if you try to destroy either of those."

Dragon lets out a sigh of relief as she walks to her mat in the pagoda.

As she kneels down beside Missy, the Empress asks, "How are you doing Missy?"

Missy groans, "This is worse than when Hookwolf got me." She then turns bright red at the slip of her tongue.

"Remember, this is just like when you were learning to feel qi on Tuesday. Except now you're learning to cultivate both your body and your soul at the same time. Dakala's learning the same thing, but it's harder for her because I fed her a seed and forced her body to improve to the Flying Immortal stage. Once she's learnt it, and she's doing it naturally I'm going to give her talisman back. Dakala, while you're lying there, you should also lay down your foundation, as I think you're soul is just about big enough now."

Dakala groans, "Now you tell me. Am I going to get struck by lightning?"

The Empress shakes her head, "No, remember an unbalanced cultivation towards the body shortens your lifespan because your soul can't keep up. When I wrote your Dao, the heavens tried to kill cultivators in the fairest way they could. So you'd always get a tribulation. I changed it to check for imbalance, as the tribulation lightning tempers your body."

Dakala looks at Missy, "Missy, I hope you know that your clothes are going to be ruined."

Missy tries to nod, "I know, I hate them, but mom thinks they make me look like a proper girl for her fashion parades and social outings. At least dad lets me wear pants."